My Life as a Musical

Sometimes I wish I were the only person in the world...or at least that I could suspend time or become invisible so as to produce the same effect without damaging long-term loneliness. I most frequently wish this when I am outside. Unlike inside, outside is an uncontrolled environment. I could run across any number of people I had not planned to run across. These people could be hostile. These people could just be male, which is almost the same thing.

What's the problem? The problem is that I have a jukebox in my head. (Also in my iPod, which only magnifies the head jukebox problem.) And when a song comes over the jukebox, I often want to sing along with it, and usually do a little dancing to it, too.

I have embraced this eccentricity far more recently due to my pastor and his kids, who all vocalize their internal jukebox soundtracks. I have much less of a problem breaking into snatches of song when in the company of friends. I have been taught, however, possibly just by being female, that it's not a great idea to draw attention to myself outside the company of friends. If I were to go skipping and dancing along down the trails near my place, who knows what could happen. I don't care nearly as much as I used to about people laughing at me. I am still concerned that random strangers could fall madly in love with my carefree abandon, and I would be breaking who knows how many hearts. And that is the most pleasant option. (And if you think that option is not that bad, you don't know me very well.)

Nichole (a friend from college) had a sort of fantasy in which she and a large group of her friends would go to a mall and divide up into various stores. Then Nichole would start walking through the mall singing, and her friends would jump out of the stores at various points and join in, and everyone who wasn't in on it would wonder what they had wandered into.

My musical fantasies aren't that complicated. I just want to do a little twirling and fake choreography from time to time when I'm out walking.

Until I get braver, I guess I'll settle for dancing until I round corners...and making 360 degree turns slowly as though I had to look at something behind me...and extending my arms as though it were part of my exercise regimen.

My life as a stealth musical.