30 was a turning point for me.

30 was a line in the sand, a springboard, a mirror.

As the clock rolled past midnight on New Years of 2008, I sat alone in my living room, deep in thought. I looked back on my first three decades with an air of bemusement, as though the girl I used to be was a stranger, just a pretty face in a high school annual, a grainy newspaper photo from a scrapbook, so removed I’d become from all I had been and done and dreamed of.

In my crazy youth it was all about me, twenty years of reveling in what felt good right now and was fun in this instant. Then, from twenty to thirty, the focus shifted. Suddenly, it was all about them – being a great asset to my employers, making a good home for my husband, being the best mother to my babies.

As I peered around the corner to 30 I wondered, what will this decade bring? There was so much I had planned on doing, but the image of the woman I’d once aspired to be had grown dim, replaced by chubby, lonely, bored little me. As the responsibilities crowded closer, I’d lost my dreams, didn’t even notice as they dropped from me like petals of cut flowers wilting in a dry vase.

“He loves me, he loves me not…” and then, nothing left but a brown stem.

I took a picture of myself that night, my expression morose and wounded, and made that my profile picture on LiveJournal, Facebook, MySpace. After a few days of looking at that depressed countenance I realized this was no way to greet my next 30 years. Who was that beaten down woman? I took a deep breath, stepped to the edge, and dove.

I knew the first thing I needed to find were some goals – my last true goal had been at age 23, I was going to get a library degree, and graduate with honors. Once that was done, I’d been too caught up with the day to day that I never got around to making more! I wanted to start small – not frighten my ambition into submission, just encourage it.

I picked four things to do in my 30th year. First, get into acting again. It had been one of my favorite pastimes in my youth and it had been a decade since I’d even auditioned for a role. Next, I wanted to get something published. Well, I wanted to get lots of things published, but the goal was just one thing, a start, an introduction. Next, I wanted to find the physical me that had disappeared beneath my mommy body, so weight loss was on the menu and finally, I wanted to sing karaoke – live and in front of an audience of strangers, sober. I’d never done it before, it terrified me, I wanted to face my fear and hear a smattering of applause for my effort!

Over the course of my 30th year, I knocked the goals out one by one. I got a small role in a local murder mystery show in February and then in May played the lead in the spring community theater performance. I had a poem published in Mothering magazine. By the fall, I had started a weight loss program and was getting in shape. I was rediscovering myself, improving…I just couldn’t bring myself to tackle the last thing…the karaoke.

Three weeks ago, the week before I turned 31, I got online and started looking for a good place in Atlanta to knock out my final goal. But, it was too late, I couldn’t get a group together before I blew out the candles on my cake. However…I wasn’t going to let that stop me. The very next week I kissed my husband and kids goodbye, got in my car and headed to the city to be a karaoke star.

I met up with my best friends, some old, some new, and we went to dinner before the big event. In fact, dinner was meant to BE the big event but somewhere between the hummus and pita and my crawfish etouffe talk turned to my unrealized dreams of karaoke glory. Calls were made, texts were sent, a phone book was borrowed from the kindly Indian manager at a quickie mart and suddenly we were off to the suburbs, off to Alex’s Pan Asian Cuisine. 

The restaurant, a simple black box of a building tucked away in a strip mall, was mostly deserted when we arrived. Painfully loud music was blaring from two huge speakers and, for a few minutes, we sat uncomfortably, unconvinced that we should even stay. More friends arrived, hugs were exchanged, and we stood in small groups poring over the white binders of song choices, trying to decided between Elton John and Billy Joel…Alanis, Janis or Blondie. We would stay, and give it a shot. 

More people arrived, strangers this time, and they lounged at other tables, ordering drinks and looking for music of their own. I was terrified. I called the waitress over for a vodka and cranberry, and when she brought it to me in a rocks glass, I wished it was much, much taller. The thought of singing in front of my friends and these strangers made me feel queasy. 

I quickly learned a fascinating lesson about karaoke. Unlike so much in life…it isn’t a competition. It’s not a test, or a proving ground, and I shouldn’t have been afraid. 

My friend Pacer was the first of our group to get called up to sing. I love him more than just about anyone, and he will be the first to tell you he isn’t such a great singer, so I’m not telling secrets when I say his rendition of Piano Man was…entertaining, to say the least.  

Everybody loved him! Everyone was clapping and cheering for his enthusiasm and I realized the experience was purely about fun and encouragement. The room was full of half-drunk laughter and positive energy. 

The D.J., a hot little mama named Gypsy, played a line dance next and I got up and shook my tail on the white tiles in front of the bar, and then she called my name to sing.  

Eyes wide and scared, I grabbed the mic and looked wildly around for the screen with the words. I had no idea what I'd be singing – three different people had given song requests with my name on them, so it could have been anything from Like a Virgin to Ain’t Too Proud to Beg.

Fortune was on my side – as the opening lines to the song I picked, House of the Rising Sun, popped up on the monitor, I took a deep breath and just…went for it. 

“There is a house in New Orleans….they caaalll the Rising Sun…”  

Now, for those of you who never sang karaoke, here’s a fascinating fact – the music is so loud, you really can’t hear yourself at all. The only way I could tell how I sounded was my audience – and they were all whooping it up merrily, so I could only assume I was doing well. Just like any performance, when the audience is positive, you get more confident and by the end of the song I was making eye contact with the audience and making love to the microphone.  

I bounced back to my seat full of adrenaline and buoyed by applause – it was such fun! I’d done it – my number four goal finally checked off the list! 

But then something happened that changed my entire perspective.  

Gypsy’s mama sang too.  

Gypsy started by telling the audience, in her whiskey warm Southern accent, what a special night this was for her, because her true love and her mother were both a part of the crowd that evening. She explained that her mom was from Tennessee and didn’t get to come to Atlanta much, but tonight she was going to do something she’d never tried before, she was going to sing karaoke. 

Her mom, sitting alone at the bar, had been nursing the same rum and coke since we’d arrived. Petite, with long, dark brown hair and a shy smile, she was a slightly rounder version of her daughter. Great looking for an older woman, in low slung jeans and a purple silky top that looked brand new – bought just for the occasion – you could see the attention made her a little uncomfortable, but she was game. 

She walked to the mic slowly, a smile both excited and embarrassed curving her lips. Gypsy hugged her and for a moment they looked into each other’s eyes. Older drawing courage from younger, younger passing her pride to her mother. 

“Now, y’all be nice to my mama!” she said and left the stage.  

Gypsy’s mom started to sing. She’d chosen an old favorite, and while she was no Patsy Cline, when she sang “Crazy…” in her husky Tennessee voice, the whole bar stopped to listen.