Oh, What a Night!

This morning I woke up with a happiness hang-over. It was just that kind of night.  It's the kind of memory that will bring me joy until I can't remember anything anymore.
I was the last of the "graduates" to take the stage. This meant I sat through nine other graduate's sets. My outside demeanor was calm. Inside, I was a bundle of nerves. Never once, however, did I doubt my decision to be there nor the path that led me there.
I knew it was where I was supposed to be. I knew I was doing what I was supposed to be doing.
I give some credit to Oprah for these little insights.
I have XM/Sirius radio and I get the Oprah channel. On the long, boring drive from Rural Montgomery County to Hendersonville and back for the past nine months I have listened to a lot of talk radio. Yesterday, while running errands I found myself listening to Oprah describing her career path. She talked about intuitively knowing when to leave one situation to try something new. She recalled how a former boss told her a move to Chicago to do a local talk show was a horrible idea because she was no Phil Donohue and further predicted she would "die on the vine".
She said she did not want to be Phil Donohue she wanted to be herself. I think we can all know how that turned out?
So, the point is - I can only be me. Part of what makes me, well, me is my circle of friends and family. On stage, you cannot really see the wider audience because of the stage lighting. I could not see my supporters but I knew where each and everyone of them were. So many of the chairs were occupied by people there for me that the whole room felt covered in love. Being loved by these people and feeling the presence of those who could not physically be there with me made me a success before I spoke my first words.
Three minutes is a blink of an eye and an eternity. I claim those three minutes as a highlight in my life.
It was only 53 years in the making. Totally worth the wait.