“Someday’ is a disease that will take your dreams to the grave with you.” —Timothy Ferriss
Last July, I sat with a dear friend as she passed away from cancer. Even with a terminal disease, Darcy lived her life fully until it ended, fitting in trips across the world between rounds of chemo, and adorning her bald head with exquisite, detailed henna designs. She would take her Happy Camper (she named it Olive) and spend days alone, sometimes in places she had visited countless times before. Yet she never lost her sense of wonder about any of them.
She spoke openly about her experience with cancer. She listened to others who struggled. She never gave up. And she always shared her light with the world.
Watching Darcy embrace adventure and embody courage, even during such a difficult time, challenged me to reflect on my own life. On the ways in which I subconsciously assumed that “someday” would always be there, and there would be time to accomplish all the things I wanted to accomplish.
The truth is: none of us knows what life holds…or just how quickly the “somedays” and “eventuallys” can get snatched away.
Watching her move through her struggle with such courage and intention pushed me to look at some of the things I had been putting off and ask myself, “What are you waiting for?”
We all have these “someday” dreams in the back of our mind. We tell ourselves we still have time…
But wait too long, and those “somedays” start to turn into regrets.
You’ll Regret It If You Never Try
As a young girl, I loved to sing.
At an early age (8 or 9 years old), I was the singer in a girl band in my neighborhood called The Lockets. Our audiences were usually house cats and siblings, but hey–it was a gig.
As I got older, I became obsessed with Joni Mitchell, and found myself captivated by everything she wrote. The Dawntreader stopped me in my tracks. Blue was a revelation. Marcie was the saddest song I had ever heard. Magical lyrics and melodies woven together to paint an impossibly beautiful picture.
I wanted to be like her.
I hid my wish to be a singer-songwriter, knowing it was something my family would not embrace. They encouraged me to study classical piano, guitar, and clarinet, which I did. But I always yearned to explore different musical experiences, to be more like Joni.
I performed in my college’s production of Grease, which scratched the itch to some degree. And, early in my finance career, I snuck away to open mics in Manhattan jazz clubs to sing ballads and torch songs.
Then life took over. I got married. I became a mom. I had a busy life—too busy for singing, I thought.
But eventually, the regret started to tug at me.
So, when I turned 40, I made a pact with myself that I would return to the thing that tugged. I wasn’t quite sure how, but I kept my ear to the ground, got curious. That’s when I saw an index card posted on a bulletin board at the local music store (yes, that’s how it used to work) that read, “Female lead vocalist wanted for rock band.”
I gulped. Hard. And called the number.
As I drove to the audition, petrified, I remember saying to myself OUT LOUD, “Nancy, you HAVE TO act like you’ve been here before, like this is an old hat to you, nothing new or remarkable. The MINUTE you show ANY sign of fear, you’re TOAST.”
And that’s exactly what I did. I sauntered into the audition feigning complete confidence and experience…like I’d been in that very same situation a hundred times before.
And I got the gig.
I’ve been singing with bands ever since. And, in the past decade, I’ve even turned my focus to songwriting and recording, another fulfilling experience I never thought I’d have.
When I think back, it’s crazy to realize that I almost gave up on that passion. I almost shelved it for a “someday” that may or may not have ever arrived.
Pursuing Your Joni Mitchell
Ever since Darcy’s passing, I’ve been looking at the other areas of my life where I have unfulfilled Joni Mitchell dreams.
And I’ve been making it a point to pursue them.
First on the list? In just a few weeks I will be on a plane to Kenya, fulfilling my lifelong dream of visiting Africa. It still feels a little unreal, and I alternate between gratitude for the opportunity and anxiety about giving myself permission to do it.
The fact is, I’m nowhere near as adventurous as Darcy was. But she inspired me to stop waiting—that if something’s important to me, to be intentional about it. If you want to do something, try something, or experience something, put a plan in place that will help you NOT procrastinate.
In my friend’s final moments on this earth, I read her a poem called “Mindful” by Mary Oliver:
Every day I see or I hear something that more or less kills me with delight,
that leaves me like a needle in the haystack of light.
It is what I was born for–to look, to listen, to lose myself inside this soft world–
to instruct myself over and over in joy, and acclamation.
Nor am I talking about the exceptional,
the fearful, the dreadful, the very extravagant–
but of the ordinary, the common, the very drab,
the daily presentations.
Oh, good scholar, I say to myself, how can you help
but grow wise with such teachings as these–
the untrimmable light of the world,
the ocean’s shine, the prayers that are made out of grass?
I know that Darcy’s happy about my trip. And so am I, nerves and all, whatever the outcome.
So, give it a go. Sing. Explore. Make the back burner the front burner. It may not always work out, and that’s okay. Trying is always better than waiting for a “someday” that never comes.
