"Good, Baby, That's What They're Supposed to Do."

I have always been a dreamer. Big, elaborate dreams. Growing up, my friends had dreams to be teachers, lawyers, doctors...then there was me. I wanted to be a record label owner. I wanted to find talent and introduce it to the world. This was a dream of mine for most of my childhood and teenage years.

My dad was one of the only people who supported this dream. He would listen to me talk about the music industry non stop. He may have not known how to help me reach that dream, but he never once told me it was too big or unachievable. In fact, he was always telling me to go after exactly what I wanted in life. When I was a senior in high school, my dad took my friend, Arianna, and I down to Orlando to tour Full Sail University. We toured the University. Part of the tour was getting to explore your special interests. Arianna and I got to sit down in a studio and "engineer a song" on their equipment. My dad followed us around that entire day and even went to the party they threw for prospective students that night. He had a blast. I remember him telling me that he loved watching me light up learning all about the program.

A few weeks later we got the application packet. It was too much money for us and he didn't want me to have to deal with crushing student loan debt, so I decided to look else where. I wasn't finding what I wanted, so I just gave up and decided to go to school for business. Well around this time, I was also struggling with alcoholism, self harm, and just not caring too much about my life. So I just kind of gave up on this dream. Breaking into the entertainment industry is nearly impossible without connections anyway, right?

So instead of working in the entertainment industry, I decided to keep it as a hobby. I still throw myself into music, theatre, cinema, television, and sports. My dreams are now a lot smaller and more achievable. Things like seeing my favorite artists live, going to watch my favorite sports team, taking in as many movies in theaters as I can, and traveling to NYC to see live theatre.

I was talking to my dad this past week and telling him about how excited I was for this upcoming trip to NYC. I told him that we were going to see Mariska Hargitay twice on Broadway, that we were seeing Lea Michele (Rhiannon and I met through Glee) in one of our favorite shows, that we were going to walk the Brooklyn Bridge, and (hopefully) seeing the Knicks play in MSG on the Jumbotron. I said "Daddy, so many dreams are coming true on this trip." and his response was "Good, Baby, that's what they are supposed to do." Needless to say, I became very emotional. Here were are almost 20 years later, dreams have changed but my dad's attitude toward them has not. He is still my biggest supporter when it comes to my crazy dreams.

When I told him about this NYC Marathon dream, he instantly jumped on board. He bought me Brooks running shoes for my birthday. We talk about how it's going almost every time we talk. I asked if he would come to NYC to be there when I complete the marathon, he said that if he is able he will be there. This is huge as he has never cared about going to NYC ever. In fact, he is completely against coming to the city.

So for this blog, I just wanted to give a huge shout out to my daddy, my biggest supporter, no matter how crazy the dream is. The man who reminds me (and now you) that "dreams are supposed to come true so go out and chase them!"

#JoyfulJourneyHappyHeart