We All Have Little Girl Dreams of Making it Big

UPDATED: April 7, 2011


Ok, so I wrote this post last night after watching "American Idol." Then, without anticipating it, a person who seemed to be just about everyone's favorite, Pia Toscano, was eliminated on Thursday night. Clearly, she is in a caliber of her own and does not need a show like "American Idol" to be successful. 


Even though I participated in the "I'm outraged" and "what just happened" reaction, I do believe that she, just like every little girl (and boy) who tries to do what they believe they can do, is already a winner. 


Now a question for you, what is it that you really want to do? What's stopping you? 


ORIGINAL POST BELOW: 


Thanks to Charlie Sheen winning seems to be everything these days.

It’s not about winning, though. It’s about trying. It’s about getting up after falling down. It’s about trying that dance move one more time. It’s about wearing that ballerina outfit even though you think you look like a marshmallow when you’re wearing it. It’s about singing country, if you’re a little bit country, instead of singing rock ‘n roll. 

Just saying.

When I was about 7, I was in a little dance troupe. I was in a class called “intermediate jazz.” I wasn’t reformed enough for the ballet. I was way to attention-deficit for that, and not quite coordinated enough for tap (as much as I wanted to be). I had these small-town, big-girl dreams of making it big. 

Our dance teacher decided we would be dancing our final number to “A Spoonful of Sugar” from Mary Poppins. Little did any of us know then that a spoonful of sugar made me dangle from the chandeliers and not dance. 

I can still remember holding hands with the other members of our all-girl group as we wore these checkered red and white leotard outfits with frilly white things attached to them and sparkling red hats. We skipped are way to the right, and then around, in a circle. Then there was something about “jazz hands.”

Courtesy: franticmeerkat.com

Apparently, if you spread your hands open really wide you can feel the energy coming out of your fingertips. I think it was just the blood freaking out about which way to travel.

Somewhere, in the home archives, and not in this house, my parents have a picture of me in that dorky little outfit. Man, I thought I was something else. And, like almost every 7 year old girl, I knew, I was going to be a star. 

23 years later, all I an say to that is just dance. Lady Gaga got that right. Just dance. 

And, in the words of my eighth grade language arts and social studies teacher, to my friends, and to those who try, “You’ll always be famous to me.”

It’s not about winning. It’s about believing. 

It’s not about being famous, or even trying.

It’s about being you. Red and white checkered leotard with frilly white thing, and all. 

Love Comes in Any Size & For Many

Love can come in any size or shape or package. All that matters is that it comes and we recognize it when it does. Romantic love, friendly love, and just because I am human I love you as a human, too, love.

I get the funny thing, I do. Some people say I'm too analytical. Sometimes, that is true and other times it is not. Most of all I really just would rather dangle a spoon from my nose than care as much as I do or you think that I do.

If there is a lesson in not caring... This isn't it.

All week, I wanted to write about the anticipation of something...

For the last three weeks, I don't know why, I have rushed to the mailbox expecting "something." Good mail. But, no. Mostly bills.

I then got this urge to bake. I wanted to make cookies and for anyone who would eat them. Then, I realized I was anticipating mail like I was expecting cookies from Grandma.

When I was about 5, my Grandma shipped Valentine's cookies to our house. I remember it because I answered the door.

I was having a playdate with a friend and my Mom was on the phone.

This week I wrote on his Facebook wall (lame, I know) something to the effect of, "Remember when we were like 5 and my Grandma mailed heart shaped cookies and we ate almost all of them by the time mom got off the phone?"

Love me some cookies. Love me some cookie memories.

Love can come in any package, yet that is one I'll never forget.

So, I made cookies this week and thought as I mail them off to those who kindly wanted some, "With Love, from Grandma."

This whole baking for friends or "Operation Cookie" as I call it puts a whole new meaning to "That's the way the cookie crumbles."

My mom said, "Who doesn't like cookies?"

I laughed. Then, I thought if love comes in box of cookies, I'd spend my whole life making and shipping them so that others can rush out... Hoping for some good mail.

I can't do that.

So, I decided I would bring back cards, you know, because they're better than bills. So, I sent out approximately 12 Valentine's type cards to people whether they were my best friends or just what I now call "vacationers" ( you know, people you drop in on and pick up where you left off.)

I told a friend that by bringing back good mail I was going to single-handedly save the postal service. Then, I discovered that also meant saving Hallmark.

Despite the cost and the time spent baking and writing notes with an actual pen and the time it takes, I love it.

So here is the return to Happy Wednesday's and Just Because days, and cookies because I know you love them surprises.

Love comes in any size, for many. It might just be in your mailbox. Notice, I didn't say email.

Stand Up, Take the Chance

Every now and then, there is a time to become retrospective. You know, to stare back at your past and contemplate past situations.

The other day, I bought pickles. Someone I know didn’t like pickles at all and often would say, “Eww, gross.” Sometimes the sound “blech” would even be uttered.

Yum.... pickles.

I like pickles. I also like olives. Ok, so sometimes, I really like salty things that have a vinegar kind of taste, and I will walk for miles until I find them.

When I was younger, I gave advice to friends who were at that time the age that I am now. I would say, “If there’s something you want, do it.” 

Of course, I assumed all known consequences would be taken into consideration and they wouldn’t actually do anything that could get them into trouble.

So, here I am, the other day, standing at my kitchen counter staring at this jar of pickles. Then, it dawned on me, I really wanted those pickles. In fact, I wanted them just as much as I wanted olives in 1994. 

Almost 17 years ago, I was in Spain. My parents sent me there as part of an Educational Foreign tour (which I highly recommend, by the way). Towards the last leg of the trip, I was staying somewhere along the Costa del Sol and enjoying the sunshine. It was just hours before my 14th birthday and I had a hankering for something salty. Not just salty, I wanted olives. 

So, I gathered up my little backpack and I started walking along a boardwalk, a sidewalk along the beach. I walked, and I walked, and I really do not know how long I walked. Yet, clear as if it were two minutes ago, I remember walking, turning left into a store, and darting straight for “cans of stuff.” I sure was persistent. I found my olives, I bought them with whatever little money I had left, and walked all the way back to my hotel room. I don’t even remember how I opened the can, but I sat there and I ate every single olive. I even stuck the olives on my fingers, and ate them off of the tips, just as if I were 7 again.

The point is, I wanted those olives (or pickles, I would have taken pickles). I knew that eating them wouldn’t hurt me, so I took the risk, or rather, the chance, of walking along that boardwalk by myself in search of something that, in that moment, was so important.

It was my very own, yet incredibly small “call to action.” 

That stand up and take charge desire carries with me through today. 

On March 30, 1999, 5 years after my olive pursuit, and 2 years after a several mile walk through London to find Dr. Pepper (yet, another story), I sat down to write something about taking charge. 

I stumbled across it recently, in this green hand-written journal I've been keeping since 1997. Now, I believe it resonates with the entire focus of doing something. 

In part, it reads:

“You’ve got to take the chance.

Never wash your hands.

Let them run through your hair.

You’ve got to give yourself praises.

Never be a bum.

You can do more than chew gum.

You’ve got to take charge.

Never let your ambition die. 

You know you can claim all your fame.

If you know there’s something you want to do,

Get up the courage.

Stand up, take the chance.

If you know there’s something you want to do

Get up, take charge.

Never walk away, it doesn’t matter

if you’re ten minutes late.” 

I think that now I could add a line to the part there in bold. Remember Lee Ann Womack’s song, “I Hope You Dance,” well, just remember “Stand up, take the chance, I Hope You Dance.” 

Or, Martina McBride, and her song “Anyway.” Unlike that first part, it’s not about fame. It’s just about doing something good just because it makes you, or someone else, smile. 

Being "Open" Can Change Your Life

Written around 7:00 p.m., January 16, Local time over the Pacific Ocean. Posted upon return.

This is relief.

Clearly stated, it is my opinion that anyone who says you can't "Eat, Pray, Love" the way Elizabeth Gilbert does is wrong. I just did it and didn't have to take six months off or quit my job. I just wanted it to come to me. You know, the grand feelings of nothingness like relief, solitude, and simple quiet celebrations. I experienced it all.

"Annie, you are free," said a former colleague, who now must be a friend, in the hours after my life changed. Her statement almost immediately allowed me to see that I should celebrate it.

Sidebar: Isn't it funny how one person can say something so simple and we just grasp on to it like a commandment? The smallest thing can make all the difference, I mean one word, one person can change your entire perspective. Ultimately, just by being open, it then changes your life.

Freedom followed me to Hawaii where I just came back from vacation.

The first night I was mistakenly recognized by ten members of the Air Force as a celebrity. Ashley Greene from "Twilight" and Jennifer Grey. I'm so glad they didn't ask me to perform any dirty dancing.

To Michael in Miami, thank you for telling me to relax... I certainly did.

The next day, my friend (who met me in Hawaii from Chicago) and I drove to the North Shore and we ate Mexican food. We escaped the rain and found a private beach where we sat and ran and laughed and took pictures. Later, at The Hula Grill, I ordered a Mai Tai (my first one in almost 8 years) and a seafood platter. That is my "Eat."

That night we went back the hotel bar, where I was the celebrity the night before. It was called The Shore Bird. Immediately I spotted a Man in Maroon sitting across from me. The connection was instant. After a drink or two, conversation, and a walk on the beach the following night it was over.

My friend back in California said, "No pressure, just have fun." I did, but the Man in Maroon represents the "love." Maybe I just had to travel that far for a confidence boost.

The morning after meeting the Man in Maroon we went to Pearl Harbor. There isn't a better place to signify "pray." Standing over the Arizona, I saw the "oil tears" rise up immediately after I prayed, and then I nearly cried.

I never once heard the word or uttered the word frump on this vacation. Getting the Frump Out of Your Rump is a process, a journey, and as much as we want to believe it is possible, it does not happen overnight.

I wish it would, but we are all a work in progress. We're all in or have been in situations we know aren't right but deep down hope that they are. We've all been tugged and pulled at every angle and left to figure out how to keep moving.

I'm still Floating on The Wings of Earthly Angels. Yet, I'm sustained by a journey in which I realized it's ok to be perfectly me, and find out that I'm just as attractive as I had hoped to be.

At the end though, this is not just about me. It is about all of you, too, and if I could have packed you all in a suitcase for the opportunity to just feel free, I would have.

In short, here are the lessons of the island:

• Smile. Everyone will smile back to you. 
• Laugh, because it matches the synchronous sounds of the crashing ocean waves.
• Embrace, because someone who just wants a human connection will embrace you back. 
• Be open. You cannot feel the healing until you recognize the freedom. When you do, let freedom ring. Buy a piece of jewelry, fitted with the plumeria, to remember your self-discovery. I did, and it will stay with me until I have a daughter or a granddaughter one day who needs that reminder as much as I do now.
• Be you. Being open and being you work together. You simply can't be open if you're faking any part of you.
• Love, because it offers the most rewards. 
• Forgive, because there is no passage to any of the above without it.

I forgive myself for believing for so long that I wasn't good enough, beautiful enough, or smart enough to have, or be, what I needed.

It may just be wishful thinking, but I never saw my worry wrinkle...

Join the conversation. Feel free to leave comments below, or  send me an email direct. 

In the Stillness and Silence of a Moment

The new year is here, so what are we going to do about it? There was just one goal for me as the sun set on 2010 and 2011 was about to begin: clarity. 

I wanted to see it, the year, clearly leave and the new one clearly arrive so that I’d remember the moment forever. It would be a defining moment for me (and I’m sure for countless others around the world). 

As the crowded room started to shout in chorus “10, 9, 8....” I tuned them out. For a moment, like many moments recently and yet to come, I stood in the stillness, and the silence of my own moment. 

Maybe, just for a second, that clarity lifted the veil from obscurity and wonderment, and that always present question we ask: Why?

The answer that’s most often given is one that at the very core of our very human existence is just not acceptable. “it’s life.” 

In that one second, that question wasn’t answered with words. Instead, life answered in a moment. 

Seconds later, the sound, like turning up the volume on a car stereo, rushed into my brain. My eyes lifted open with astounding excitement and gracious acceptance of the new year. Yet, I smiled on knowing the secret to any clarity is in the stillness and the silence of a moment.

JOIN THE CONVERSATION: I like hearing from you, and if you have something you want to share, you may always comment below or email me. Remember, for some of you, this is your journey too. 

In the Midst of a Defining Moment

I watched the movie “Sleepless in Seattle” tonight (as in on December 29th, just a few hours ago) for what may have been the twentieth time. Oddly enough, for the first time, I didn’t cry. Not a single tear. One thing I noticed is how much I noticed differently than I did the other nineteen or so times. 

Not a single tear. What does that mean? Is that a disengagement of my current situation or just the subtle, if in fact, awareness of the fact that the lines in the movie are quite adequately true? 

We don’t want to be in love, we want to be in love in a movie.

When I was in high school, a columnist wrote that unlike the television show “Friends” (which happened to be my favorite), we don’t hear theme songs or a laugh track in real life. This I know to be true. 

Is this the moment, the moments after I turn off the TV and let it sink in that this is real life and not a movie, I realize that this may be a defining moment? 

Let me step back for a minute and say that this Reverb 10 business is like homework therapy. Two of the most recent prompts, “Ordinary Joy” and “Defining Moment”, both deserve their own separate posts. However, I wanted to be inspired so I popped in a movie that I thought would make me laugh and cry. 

So, here we go.

I believe we can experience ordinary joy with a laugh and a cry. About a week and a half ago someone sent me a message and the first line read, “I’m so proud of you.” In an instant, unlike any instant I’ve experienced recently, I cried. I was fully crying, tears streaming down my face, and then, I started laughing as I recognized I was experiencing complete and utterly ordinary joy. 

It is amazing how one person can say just one thing and it can change our entire experience, for the moment, for the journey, or for the entire course of our lives. Sure, people tell you and I they’re proud of us often, I’m sure, but when do we really actually hear it?

“I’m so proud of you,” I read the words again, and for the first time in a long time wasn’t embarrassed. Like everyone, I needed someone to be proud of me. Then, to continue on and say, “See how strong you really are.” 

This, as simple as it was, may have been the most defining recent moment of 2010. It certainly doesn’t define the entire year, or the experience of the year, but it defines how it’s ending and the entrance to 2011. 

Have you ever wondered why people cry at romantic comedies? They’re looking for a happy ending. No, not the happy endings that make the news, but happy endings like the one in which Annie finally gets to figure out why she’s so intrigued by that man who is Sleepless in Seattle. There’s some truth to the wonderings that keep us up at night. We’re curious by nature, and if part of that pursuit is finding our happiness, we have to go with it, right? 

There is complete and total ordinary joy in watching a movie, or reading a note, or hearing words that can make one smile, whether you’re the one smiling or the one saying the nice things. I believe, that in each instance where we experience some ordinary joy, we’re also in the midst of a defining moment. 

Floating On the Wings of Earthly Angels

The healing is just beginning. 

In these final weeks of 2010, the healing is just beginning. It started with writing this blog. Everyone needs an outlet of some kind to identify why they are hurting and need healing in the first place. 

Putting pen to paper, or fingertips to keys on a keyboard, is one way a person can get close with their thoughts. Joan Didion once said, “We tell ourselves stories in order to live.” 

Perhaps, healing comes in a two step process when one is writing. First, the thoughts enter your mind. Then, there’s an adjustment between resting on a sturdy foundation and falling into a deep pool of uncertainty. At that point, if you’re writing, the words start to flow. Then, you start to make sense of it. l guess it was more than two steps, wasn’t it? 

This process, this blog is a way to heal, for me. It is my sincerest hope that if you’re reading this, and you wonder how to begin the healing process that maybe you find a nugget of hope, or process, or passages to sustain you. After all, the characteristics that make us all human come in the form of faith, hope and love and are sometimes masked as doubt, worry, or regret. 

Floating on the wings of earthly angels. I’ve said this statement a few times this week and at first it sounded quite holy and mighty. Then, I realized it just happened to be the truth. 

Sometimes, things change in our lives in a way that we don’t understand, or we have trouble accepting why things have changed, or just can’t get beyond being stuck in a moment. 

The healing process for me got a kick start because of others in my life. The recognition that people like you for you and for no other reason is one of the most comforting feelings in the world. People just sometimes show up. You have no idea who they will be or why it is them, but when they do, embrace them with open arms. I have to. 

I’m trying to like myself more. It’s really easy to give up on yourself when you’re so busy running errands, going to work, cooking meals, dealing with the kids, the cat, the dog.... You get the idea. You become exhausted. Remember when I talked about napping? We can’t do anything for anyone else if we don’t do something for ourselves. In 2011, I’m going to like myself more. 

You know, giving is not about the anticipation of anything in return, it’s about the genuine human character of the giver. People who give do so because they want to and because they can. 

And that, realizing that in order to really give, one must heal (which may involve forgiving oneself), accept love, and try to like themselves more and allow themselves time to do all those things, is the lesson learned in 2010. 

Oh, and to smile more. Maybe someone will smile back. 

Get Your Own Blog Prompts at www.reverb10.com

I Don't Want Worry Wrinkles

I also don't want to be a frump.

I’ve filled my face with worry wrinkles.

That’s what I call them. There’s this crease in the middle of my forehead above my left eyebrow, and I swear it was not as deep and as defined earlier this year as it is now. I can tell you exactly when it developed, and it probably will never go away.

I’d rather be noticed for my smile lines, my bursting red cheeks, and my sometimes apple-colored skin. I say that even though I find it, too, embarrassing sometimes.

The Reverb 10 project put out the word today as “Things.” What 11 things do I not need in my life in 2011? Certainly, I don’t need worry.

Worry never got anyone anywhere and fear and doubt don’t help either.

“Doom!” My boyfriend says to me when anything could potentially go wrong. For example, I have a paper due for a graduate class but I may not have time to finish. I’ll tell him my concerns, and he says the word “doom.” He says it with this deep, long, “ooom” sound that kind of makes me laugh and quiver at the same time. I love that.

I don’t want the doom. Yet, I have to understand that sometimes, I just can’t do anything about it.

Another example is having an unpredictable expense and putting it on a credit card. Instead of whining about it, I have to make the money I do have last longer. Or, I ask him kindly to donate generously to the Get the Frump Out of My Rump fund, and he pitches in, willingly.

What happens to you when you worry? When you are afraid?

I sometimes call it the “haunted house of my head.” It’s where all the negative ideas and thoughts are. There’s a difference between a gut instinct and rattled nerves. I believe that fear and worry manifest with a heart beat, and flushed skin, and sometimes the nibbling of fingernails. It manifests in the same way when I’m watching a movie that I know is not real, which is how I know it’s irrational.

Fear of failure. Fear of losing. It is the disenchanted wonderment that comes in asking, “Why?”

Doubt, fear, worry, they’re ugly. They are unattractive. Yet, the fact that we, as humans, have these feelings is real. Most of us, unless we are serial pessimists, don’t go through life looking for evidence to support our doubts, our fears, and our worries. Instead, if you’re like me, we choose to believe. We choose to trust and open our hearts to the positive parts of life. I recognize that life does not come without some sort of angst every once in a while, I just don’t like it.

A life that is worth living, and a love that’s worth loving, is what these experiences are all about. If we are lucky, we learn something along the way. Every morning that I wake up, I choose life. In that choice, I also choose to love the people I love, and who I know love me: Mom, Dad, Nathan, and so many good friends.

Resilience, I wrote the other day, is about the staying up and not in the falling down.

So, in answer to this challenge, as difficult as it is, I need not worry in 2011. I choose faith. I choose to celebrate in the joy while I am in it, and not wait for it. The minute worry ends, the best of my life can begin.

p.s. The 10 other things I could do without in 2011 are: doubt, fear, anxiety, confusion, debt, loss, weight gain, illness, car problems, and somehow not graduate.
How I'll work to prevent them? Believe, trust, relax, ask questions, save more, love wholeheartedly, eat and work out well, take my vitamins, take my car to the shop, and do the work and graduate.

UPDATED: DECEMBER 20, 2010

It is Better to Give Than to Receive

“It is better to give than to receive.”

I remember being assigned a lesson in 4th or 5th grade, I cannot remember which, where I had to decide which was in fact better. 

In class we read books like “The Giver.”

In 7th or 8th grade, a few years later, I decided that there was so much to be thankful for. People in my life who I could not wait to give back to. 

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday for many reasons. One, it usually means I get to be with the ones I love, or I work and am with some of my closest friends. It is also a reminder to the rest of country what gratitude is all about. 

I believe gratitude is an attitude we must hold all year long.

Giving doesn’t always have to be done monetarily. Admittedly, I would like to give money to charitable organizations or to people I see on the streets who I know are starving or dying for a warm blanket. Giving, instead, can be through kind gestures, a simple pay it forward attitude. Start small.

1. Bring your co-worker a cup of coffee, if you know they will like it.
2. Send a friend a “just because card.” You know, through the mail. I don’t know about you but I love to get mail and I don’t always like checking my phone to see if someone thought of me today or this week. 
3. Volunteer at a local homeless shelter or soup kitchen.
4. Instead of giving the homeless person cash, give them a gift card. 
5. Pray for someone. 
6. Show someone a smile. Trust me, it will make you feel good, too. 

There are so many ways we can give back. Seeing that person smile is a gift we may then receive, and it’s simple, and free. 

It really is better to give than to receive.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone, may you be blessed and aware of your blessings, on this day, and everyday. 

What Does Your Face Look Like?

“It’s the way my face looks.”

My Mom would say that to me while I was growing up whenever she would be ironing, reading, cooking, or doing something other than paying immediate attention to me.

The expression on someone’s face is a great way to learn something about you. When you glance over to someone at work you might see the lines in between their eyebrows pressed up that it looks like toothpicks. Or, if you roll over and see the person you love lying next to you, they might look glazed over, peaceful, with the creased reflection of the pillows or the sheets they’ve been sleeping on.

“It’s the way my face looks.”

Sometimes, the look can appear to be dismissive, puzzled, or concerned.

“What’s wrong,” we ask.

“Nothing,” they say.

Then, sometimes, “It’s the way my face looks.”

I’m not good at this, I’ll admit it, I struggle to smile. Yet, I’ll admit it is also one of the best feelings in the world. It immediately sends blood rushing up to my face, increasing my energy, and my mood. It’s a gift I can give someone else, and give myself. It’s also free.

The lesson is to smile more. Then, maybe the next time you look at someone’s face, they’ll be smiling back at you. 

Are you smiling?