Growing Up Before My Very Own Eyes...

We all grow up. We wake up one day and realize the world looks different from how it looked just weeks or months or years before. And if we're particularly astute, we notice that the world hasn't really changed that much. We've changed.

We're usually not aware of the growing up while it's happening.

But every now and then we find ourselves in a magical moment - a moment when everything slows down just a bit and we realize our worldview is shifting right before our eyes... that things will never be the same again... that in some way, our life from here on out will be defined as "before this" and "after this."

For me, that moment came in an underground nightclub in Paris, France when I was seventeen years old. Giddy from champagne and floating across the dance floor in the arms of the most gorgeous French man I'd ever seen, I grew up.

It's hard to say exactly what changed. I guess it dawned on me that I exist... that I really, really exist. I have free will. I am a separate entity from everyone else on the planet. I have my own life, and I can do whatever I want to do with it.

Until that point on the dance floor, the boundaries in my life were all created by other people. But in that moment I realized I can cross those boundaries.

It's funny... I didn't really cross any boundaries that night. I didn't even kiss that gorgeous French man. But I knew I could, and that made all the difference.

It was Annie Lennox playing in the background. I can still hear the opening bars to "No More I Love You's." Shoooo be doo be doo doo doo... aaaah-ahhh. To this day, every time I hear that song I remember. And every time I hear it, I wonder when the next magical moment will come for me.

How about you? When was your last magical moment?