I saw the notorious dancing baby in a social media feed this week and was reminded of the legal dramedy Ally McBeal, that ran on t.v. from 1997 through 2002. I always got a kick out of the main character when she boogied around to theme songs along with the baby dancing in the wings, highlighting the tick tock of her biological clock.

As I mentioned in my last blog, there are many tunes that soothe my soul. Penning my memoir can get pretty intense; it’s an emotional roller coaster fraught with extreme peaks and valleys. Sometimes I want to give up, but then I get encouraged when I listen to the lyrics of a tune, like these words written by Sara Bareilles: “And since your history of silence won’t do you any good, did you think it would?/Let your words be anything but empty/Why don’t you tell them the truth?”

The words of “Brave” resonate with me because the essence of my project is to reconcile with my past through my written words, to accept the adolescent experiences full of thorns and scrapes, as part of my life’s journey. Living those events brought me to the place of gratitude where I am today; a life filled with love, enriched by my husband and children, extended family, and friends.

Many songs were danced to throughout the course of the Ally McBeal series, but the show’s main song was called “Searchin’ My Soul” by Vonda Shepard, a theme that has taken precedence this past semester while I’ve worked on my masters project. “One by one, the chains around me unwind/Every day now I feel that I can leave those years behind.”