Give My Regards to Broadway

After some thought, I decided to take my earlier post down.  I was upset and hurt and processing, but decided that ultimately I didn’t need to have all of that out in the world wide web.  To those who commented, thank you and sorry I had to subject you to my crazy.  To those who missed it…lucky you.  And now, without further ado…I give you more of my life..

Riveting…

When I was a little girl, I had two goals in life: Grow up and become a gold medal winning gymnast and  become a famous movie star/singer.  Two things happened to squash those dreams – I wasn’t a very good gymnast due to my tall frame, inflexibility and terror of the high beam (do you know how narrow that things is?!).  I made it to level 7 where back handsprings on the beam were a requirement and thus ended my gymnastics career.  Well, that and a stress fracture in back.  I typically like to give people that as my excuse for quitting – it sounds cooler.

The famous actress thing died when I discovered that I stink at auditioning.  Seriously…stink at it.  Give me a room of 1,000 people and I will happily sing and ham it up all day.  Give me a room of two and I go mute.  Odd?  Yes, I would agree.  It took one semester in Baylor’s theater department for me to figure out that acting would eat me from the inside out.  So I waved goodbye to the dream and grew content with the occasional performance of the “for fun” variety.

In the last six months, however, I’ve had the opportunity to get a little stage time that I don’t usually get.  Singing in church doesn’t count.  I actually work really hard at NOT standing out on stage at church.  Because I naturally lean toward the, ahem, dramatic, I have to be very careful of my heart before I walk on stage to lead worship.  It’s not about me and it’s not about performing.

So when I got the opportunity to perform…well, let’s just say the little girl inside of me skipped a little.  And squealed and clapped her hands while jumping up and down.  Singing in this year’s VP Parade was a big slice of heaven for the little girl in me.  It was fun.  Lots and lots of fun.  I was backed by some of the greatest jazz and blues musicians in the business.  Men like Scott Alberici and “Red” Lehr, among others.

And I had fun.  It was sweltering and yes, my dress did look a bit like a muumuu, but I was on stage with a microphone in my hand singing Give My Regards to Broadway.

Fu-un.

I hope the rest of you had as magical of a 4th as I did!  I’m off to squeeze in as much St. Louis fun as I can before we have to leave.  It’s all happening very fast now… (click on the pictures to see them a little closer up)