This weekend, I am attending a Reba concert. At least, I better be. I bought the tickets 6 months ago and I am writing this a month out. So, I better be attending a Reba concert.

For the kids in the back, Reba McEntire is a country-western singing artist. Even though I don’t listen to country music much anymore, she is my go-to and has been for over 30 years. Which is odd because I have never been into twang. So, how did this come about?

One song. That’s all it took. Is There Life Out There is a track from her 1991 album For My Broken Heart. Released in 1992 it was written by Susan Longacre and Rick Giles.

But it’s important to know why I developed such an attachment to it. At first listen, there really is no connection. But that is wrong.

I graduated high school in May 1991. I started college in September 1991 and lived at home while attending school. January 1992 I was starting my second semester and dreaming big. I always had a bit of wanderlust inside me. While it took years for me to subside my fear before I indulged, I always pictured myself as a traveling soul.

Granted, the first verse doesn’t apply and so we are going to skip over most of it. We’re just focusing on the relevant.

She thought, she’d done some living

But now she’s just wonderin’ what she’s living for

Now, she’s feeling that there’s something more.

If that didn’t fit me at that time of my life nothing else would. There had to be something more.

Is there life out there? So much she hasn’t done

Is there life beyond her family and her home?

She’d done what she should, should she do what she dares?

She doesn’t want to leave, she’s just wonderin’ if there’s life out there?

That’s the chorus. That’s the anthem of my life. But the second verse hit just as hard.

She’s always lived for tomorrow

She’s never learned how to live for today

Oh, she’s dyin’ to try something foolish

Do something crazy or just get away

Oh, something for herself for a change.

The older I get the more that line resonates. She’s always lived for tomorrow, she’s never learned how to live for today. I thought I knew what it meant as a graduated teen but it hits different as a near-fifty-year old.

There’s a place in the sun that she’s never been

Where life is fair and time is a friend

Would she do it the same as she did back then?

Oh, she looks out her window, and wonders again.

By far, my biggest regret is letting fear control so much of my life for so long. While the narrator of the song is talking about marrying so young before living life I can relate in that fear dictated so much while living my life. Would I do it the same? I hope I would talk myself out of making decisions based solely on fear.

Now, I have a horrible memory. I can’t memorize a thing. But I can sing this song for you word for word (it wouldn’t be pleasant because I, unfortunately, do not sound a thing like Reba).

This is my anthem. This is me. And that is why I will be at a Reba concert tonight.