Life is Healthy

I bought myself some tulips today at WalMart. Just a little $5 bunch of small purple tulips that are still tightly closed. Soon they’ll open and then they’ll die, but from now until then they give me hope that, as I look out my window and see snow blowing little birds off the feeders, spring really is a month away.

More than that, they symbolize what I realized today listening to David Cook sing in my iPod at the gym. I never thought I’d find something profound in one of the corny songs written for American Idol winners since they’ve all been disappointingly bubblegum in nature (not to mention I hate any song that refers to rainbows), but there are three lines in the lyrics of “This Is The Time” that said to me this morning, “Hey, Lynn. Listen up.”

The first is the opening line: “I’ve been waiting for my dreams to turn into something I could believe in.”

I’ve been doing this for awhile now: waiting, sort of acting, but definitely being a mostly passive observer. I know dreams don’t simply get dumped in our laps. At least not usually. We have to act, often aggressively, to make them a reality. But this one dream I have…man…it’s been tough to envision as real.

While I’ve been aware of my holding back for awhile now, the song was there at the right place at the right time. I’ve not been acting to make one of my biggest dreams come true. I think about it all the time. I plan strategies for how to accomplish it. And still, I do nothing other than dabble in it.

Why do I do that? I thought as I cooled off on the bike. What’s holding me back?

Fear, said the little voice. Fear that you’re not good enough.

I thought about that for a few minutes and realized it was true. I don’t believe in myself. That’s the bottom line. I mean, I do a little, otherwise I wouldn’t have lost 170 pounds, right? Obviously a cheerleader lives inside me, albeit subconsciously. I need to resuscitate her. Give her some pompoms, a short skirt and some kicky white vinyl boots (that’s how pompom girls dressed when I was a kid) and let her give me an L! Give me a Y! Give me an N! Give me an N!

The second lyric that caught my attention was: “This is the time to be more than a name or a face in the crowd…”

My dream has nothing to do with fame and fortune. It’s more like losing weight – something I want to do for me, not anyone else. But it still wants to be done. Still wants to be accomplished.
There are nights I go to bed and vow to never write another blog. I want to simply vanish into anonymity and be nothing more than a face in the crowd. It’s safe being one of the masses. But always I wake in the morning and know that my voice, as small as it is in the billion-blog realm, needs to come out, even if I’m the only one who hears it. Well, me, my mom, my kids and Gail, who I’m pretty sure reads every one of my blogs. (Hi, Gail!)

Then there’s the third part of the lyric. I thought about it and decided it’s something I want to do: I’m “Ready to run; I’m keeping my feet on the ground; My arms open wide; My face to the sun; I’ll taste every moment; And live it out loud; I know this is the time.”

What have I got to lose? What’s life if I don’t break out and do what I really deep down want to do? And why not live it out loud? I’m gonna do it. I need to restructure some things, rework my priorities, but it will be done. The dream that is. It’s time.

I’d love it if you’d break down this song – or any other song or poem or writing that speaks to you whether it’s in an elevator, a commercial, or at the gym – and apply it to your own life. What dream do you have? Are you living it? Or are you merely thinking about it? This is your time. YOUR time. Just give it some thought.

Oh, and buy yourself some tulips. You deserve it.