V is for very very extra-ordinary

When I was young, I lived to sing. I began voice lessons at age 12 and chased after the dream of stardom into college. I imagined an extraordinary life for myself, filled with standing ovations grand performance gowns and full orchestras, my voice reaching the ears of millions and a name in lights.

But life is filled with ordinary choices that lead us to today. And my choices landed me into a very ordinary life, a far cry from the glamorous song I once imagined I'd sing.

Or did it?

Last night, as I gave a private concert to my four year old son and his one year old cousin while they were taking their before bedtime bath, I found myself gleefully performing to these two bright eyed boys, both of them totally in rapture over the sound of my voice.  Covering their ears as my notes soared into the epic stratosphere of the coloratura, and then jumping up into a standing ovation and calling for "More singing, more singing, again, again!" After every performance I bowed in rapid succession blowing kisses and telling my audience how much I loved them, as they laughed and clapped and blew kisses back to me. No  other audience could have loved me more. Puccini, echoed off the tiled floor, followed by Laurie Berkner's "We are the dinosaurs". (With a slight adaption to include notes Laurie could only dream of singing into my "roar").

As I stood there, singing my heart out, hair frazzled from an evening of cleaning the house in between playing, feeding and entertaining two little boys, my yoga pants splattered with bath water, watching those little hands clapping and calling for more, I realized something incredible, my life is extraordinary. And if all those years of practicing scales and pouring my heart into music was all to lead me to this moment, so that when I sang to my son and my nephew they could truly hear the voice of passion, and artistry, then it was worth it. I lived for the right reason, because it led me here.

There is nothing ordinary about your life if you live it with passion. Whether I am singing for two little boys or a booked opera house, I sing with passion. I think that sometimes we long for the extraordinary because we believe that it will wake us up to the passion and the life we have always dreamed of, it will show the world who we really are! But you are already that person, you have nothing to prove to anyone, but yourself, right now. You are living it already, we simply have our eyes and hearts closed to the extraordinary in this moment.

What is your passion? What turns your life into the extraordinary?

-The Domestic Diva