Everyone has a “thing!”

I was singing at a party last night and it is always interesting to see what sorts of characters are going to present themselves. There is such a collection of people at these events. Everyone was dressed up, but there was one lady who was dressed in a white sweat suit with a hat, a carrot strapped to her nose and red socks that showed through her sandals with the word “balls” printed across the top of them. She was carrying a basket of candy and walking from person to person as though she was the mayor of Christmas. I figured that it was a strange party expense, but someone must’ve hired her to do this. Whatever it was, it seemed about as strange to me as the bat mitzvah I sang at one time where they had hired a mime to mock a room full of 13-year-old girls. On a side note to that…he asked me out that night. I replied, “Are you allowed to talk?”…He actually left me his phone number on a napkin that night…but I couldn’t get it out of that darn box that fictitiously encapsulated it and grew smaller and smaller until it fell into the garbage…hee hee…Oh well…Anyway…the Christmas candy snowman…I was in the middle of a song as she walked up to me with her basket and asked me to pick out some treats for myself and the guys in the band. I smiled and quickly took one and set it on the keyboard next to me and went on to the second verse. She stood there and wouldn’t leave as she directed me to take more…and more…and then she kept talking. It definitely wasn’t easy for me to sing and have this conversation about candy with a lady at a formal party wearing a sweat suit. I took one more but she kept pushing. Finally I pulled the mic away from my mouth and giggled in a friendly way as I said, “You have rings on your fingers and balls on your toes! I’m having trouble taking you seriously.” She laughed and gave me a few more pieces of candy as she walked away. Later that evening, I ran into a girl who said that the woman worked with them and every year she plans a costume for this party and it’s a big surprise for everybody. I thought it was kind of nice. In that moment, I recognized the fact that people all have things they look forward to. I got a little jealous actually…She waits all year to wear a sweat suit and hand out candy and be the life of the party for one night. It’s her thing! I thought about how simple that was. I wondered if the simpler a person makes her life, the happier she is. I always have so much going on that there’s no way that waiting for one evening for an entire year would ever satisfy me. I need to do something exciting virtually on a daily basis. As a matter of fact, excitement and projects are my “thing”. Of course, what’s exciting to me may not be exciting to anyone else…but that doesn’t really matter. We all have something that gets us up in the morning. Sometimes I wish I were one of those people who are able to wait for a year for one day to come! I can’t imagine that it would ever work for me though. I have a feeling that the let down I would feel when it was over after all of the time I had spent getting ready for it, would be extremely disappointing and I’d need another goal immediately. I have a feeling that her goal must be to get ready for the next year. I would need a far bigger goal…again…I’m a little jealous!

People thrive on working towards their goals and dreams. Whether it’s wearing a carrot on your nose one night a year, or producing an album, writing 2 books a year and having a family who comes home from church on Sunday and sings around the table at grandma’s house after, it’s the need for wanting it that keeps us going. I wonder if when you get there, you sit back and say, “Ah. Now I have it all!”…or is it human nature to wonder what’s next and need to think up some new lofty goals? I think that people are the happiest when they are readying themselves for greatness! Once it finds them, often they forget to appreciate it and live in that moment before they start searching for a new definition of it. I think that I’m going to go out to the mall and buy myself some ridiculous socks with the word “balls” on them and wear them around the house today to remind myself that I already have everything I need, because tomorrow I’ll have something different to appreciate. The big picture can wait while I’m living my life right now. Hopefully by the time I get there, I’ll know how to appreciate having all of my dreams as much as I appreciate reaching towards them!