As a kid, this is what I wanted my life to be. Not in my wildest

Host:
The stage was empty now — only the faint glow of amber lights remained, hovering over the quiet haze of dust and echoes. A few chairs were scattered across the floor, their shadows long and soft in the dim glow. The faint scent of rosin, sweat, and old wood lingered in the air — the perfume of dreams that had survived applause.

Outside, the city was breathing — traffic whispering through the night, laughter spilling from nearby bars, the rhythm of a world that never quite stopped performing.

Jack sat at the edge of the stage, his hands clasped, his grey eyes fixed on the empty rows of seats. The kind of silence in his posture spoke louder than nostalgia — it was reverence.

Across from him, perched cross-legged on the stage floor, Jeeny traced the grain of the wood with her fingertips, as if she could feel the history of every song ever sung there. Her brown eyes shimmered with the light that always comes from talking about what matters most.

Between them lay a small, printed note — the quote they’d read a hundred times already tonight, but still couldn’t shake from their minds:

“As a kid, this is what I wanted my life to be. Not in my wildest dreams did I ever dare to dream that it would be this.”
— Smokey Robinson

The words glowed under the stage lights, simple yet profound — like a melody that never really ends.

Jeeny: softly “You know, that’s such a humble line. It’s not about success — it’s about gratitude. He’s not boasting. He’s marveling.”

Jack: half-smiling “Yeah. It’s like he’s standing in front of his own life, amazed it actually happened. You can almost hear the disbelief in his voice — not why me? but how did this happen?”

Host:
The light above them hummed, the soft buzz of electricity harmonizing with their quiet words. The stage floor creaked slightly as Jeeny shifted, her hand brushing against an old microphone stand, cool and smooth like memory.

Jeeny: dreamily “I wonder if that’s the truest dream — the one that surprises you. The kind you never dared to say out loud because it sounded too impossible.”

Jack: nodding slowly “And then one day, you wake up and realize you’re living it — but it doesn’t feel like a dream anymore. It feels like a story that somehow decided to let you in.”

Host:
The curtains swayed faintly, though there was no breeze. The room seemed to breathe with them — an old theater sharing its secret heartbeat with two people who still believed in wonder.

Jeeny: “You ever feel like that, Jack? Like life gave you something you didn’t even know you wanted?”

Jack: after a pause “Once. For a while. But the trick is, you don’t realize it until it’s gone. Fulfillment always looks obvious in hindsight.”

Jeeny: smiling sadly “And maybe that’s what makes it beautiful. You don’t get to know you’re in the dream until it’s already turned into memory.”

Jack: quietly “Or music.”

Host:
Her smile deepened, understanding what he meant without him having to say it. The way people do when they’ve spent years learning each other’s silences.

Jeeny: “Smokey Robinson… he didn’t just make music, Jack. He made feeling sound tangible. Every lyric of his was like sunlight breaking through heartbreak.”

Jack: softly, remembering “Yeah. He once said he wrote love songs for people who’d forgotten how to talk to each other. Maybe that’s the real miracle — turning pain into connection.”

Host:
The stage light flickered, catching the dust in golden swirls that hung like stars between them.

Jeeny: gazing upward “Can you imagine being that kid — standing in front of a cracked mirror, pretending a hairbrush was a microphone, dreaming you might be somebody one day… and then becoming that dream? Standing on real stages, singing to people who sing your words back to you?”

Jack: smiling faintly “It’s magic. But it’s also work — decades of it. The kid dreams about glory. The man knows it’s the grind that makes the music.”

Jeeny: “Still… that wonder never leaves. I think that’s what he meant — that somewhere inside the grown man, the kid is still looking around, whispering ‘I can’t believe this is my life.’”

Jack: softly “Maybe that’s the only proof you ever made it — when the kid you used to be still recognizes you and smiles.”

Host:
The silence that followed was rich, full, sacred. The kind of silence that only exists in places built for dreams — theaters, churches, childhood bedrooms.

The spotlight above them dimmed until it became a soft pool of amber around their feet, and the sound of the rain outside began to blend with the slow rhythm of their breathing.

Jeeny: after a long pause “You know what’s fatal about dreams, Jack? They grow. The moment you reach one, it’s already transforming into another.”

Jack: nodding “Yeah. But maybe that’s not fatal. Maybe it’s the point. Maybe the dream isn’t a destination — it’s a rhythm. You just have to keep singing along.”

Jeeny: smiling faintly “That’s very Smokey of you.”

Jack: chuckling “Yeah, well. He had a way of turning truth into melody.”

Host:
Jeeny stood, stretching, her shadow long across the stage. She walked to the center, where the light hit just right, and picked up the microphone. She didn’t speak into it — she just stood there, feeling the weight of the moment, of the words, of everything they’d been talking about.

Jeeny: softly, to the air “You think it ever really hits him? That he’s lived the life the kid once only imagined?”

Jack: quietly, from the edge of the stage “I think it hits him every night — just before the applause starts.”

Host:
The lights dimmed to a soft, golden hum. The stage seemed to hold its breath. Outside, the rain had stopped, and the faint glow of dawn began to creep across the edges of the curtains.

The two of them stood there — the dreamer and the skeptic, bound by the same truth: that life, for all its noise and uncertainty, occasionally gives us a glimpse of something pure.

Something miraculous.

And as the sunlight slipped through the cracks in the curtains, the narrator’s voice — low, warm, infinite — spoke the closing truth:

That the miracle of a dream is not its size,
but its continuance —
the way it grows, reshapes, and follows you through time.

That gratitude is the song we hum when words are not enough.

And that perhaps Smokey Robinson’s words were less confession than revelation —
that to live the life you once imagined
and still be in awe of it
is the highest kind of grace.

Host:
And so, beneath the soft hush of the morning,
as the light crept over empty seats and the echo of old applause,
Jack and Jeeny stood quietly —
two souls, watching the miracle of a dream fulfilled,
and daring, gently,
to dream again.