How do I get there from here?

If you're like me, you are sitting here at an age when you thought long ago you would've accomplished much more than you actually have and still feel like you are not doing what you are supposed to be doing.  Driving in my car alone today - blissfully alone - listening to Deana Carter, singing my face like I am Deana herself in concert, the words I was singing resonated.  "How do I get there from here?"

My life goals are simple.  I always wanted to marry a wonderful man and have a beautiful, healthy family, kids, a house, a couple cars that ran, and vacations. Kind of simple anyway.  I have the man of my dreams and have 2 very active - sometimes a bit crazy - kids.  I am grateful every day for all the blessings in my life.  I have sisters and brothers I love and mostly get along with, or who at least keep life entertaining.  An amazing mother who is my closest friend and whom I love with a ferocity of a bear.  So many wonderful things I am aware of and thankful for every single day.

I could expire tomorrow and would be okay not having been to Europe and every national park and not been to my American Girl lunch yet.  That'd be alright.  But what haunts me daily are the career dreams I have always had for myself that are not yet realized.  How do I get from here  - a stay at home mom (which, thank you heavens that I can do this - what an amazing blessing right there) to being a lead in a Hallmark Christmas movie? Or a Lifetime movie?  Or ABC Family?

I've wanted to be an actress since I was 12 years old.  My first boyfriend, Mark-Paul Gosselaar, was an actor and I love love loved watching him and figured he would realistically be my boyfriend if I were an actress too.  But the crush on unsuspecting MPG waned and the desire to be an actress did not.

My mother and I would watch Lifetime movies together and I always enjoyed them so much.  The acting didn't have to be good, the drama was so palpable, the love stories so anemic and yet it was all frothy warm and as comforting as a mug of hot cocoa being sipped beside a roaring fire on a cold winter's day.  It felt wonderful to me.  I loved watching these stories unfold and there took root in my little soul, the burning desire that I too, would be an actress on just such a 2 hour drama, love story or based on a true story tale.

The years have passed - many a year! - and still the dream lives on.  A wise man once told me "When you have a desire to do something that doesn't fade away, it means you are meant to do it."  Wonderful country logic from a delightfully uncomplicated man.  So now I need to get serious - I still want to be a lead (eventually! Right now I will take neighbor/best friend/cousin) in a Hallmark/Lifetime/ABC Family movie.  I'm not trying to be some famous actress and in fact would rather avoid that lifestyle.  I just want to be able to jaunt up to Canada or North Carolina or Kentucky for  6 or 8 weeks and film a charming little tale of  - something! - and be able to bring my kids and family with me and be filming, have a trailer, lines, a hair and makeup person and be able to do something I really truly love.  Just make a few of these bad boys a year, like 2.  So now I have to figure out how to get there - the collective television screen in a holiday tale of mischief, love and mischance, or whatever!  I must get there.