Saturday, July 27, 2013

From an old assignment.


I wrote this as an "autobiography" for an assignment a few years back.   
I still feel this way  for the most part. 

“Life is a journey, not a destination.
There are no mistakes, just chances we’ve taken. 
 Lay down your regrets because all we have is now. . . “


First off, I don’t think my life is terribly interesting.  I also don’t know of one self to talk about. There is only one thing in my life that I regret, and I’m not going to tell you about it here.  Well, I will let you know that it has to do with groupthink and being caught up in a moment.  Never. Again.  
But, besides that regret, I don’t regret anything I’ve done in my life.  I’ve done good things, not-so-good things, and some very stupid and unsafe things, and I don’t regret any of them.  They’ve all been learning experiences to grow from, and without them, my story wouldn’t be my story. 

I have friends who want to be thin, I have friends who want amazing families, I have friends who want to be super successful or filthy rich, and I really don’t want any of those.  My obsession is to learn how to be happy with myself and how I can live the healthiest, happiest, most fulfilling life I can live for myself.  See, I am a people pleaser, and it is easy to want to live in a way that will get the most approval from other people, and that includes, for someone like me, becoming thin, having a family, and being “successful” which basically amounts to having a nine to five with little time for vacations but living in a big-ish house in a suburban area.  I don’t really want that.  And sometimes I am a bit embarrassed by it, because all the other women my age are striving for that hardcore.  Well, at least the women I know and/or grew up with.  I tend to feel that so many people are making themselves unhappy striving for happiness.  

Like I stated before, I just want to live my best life.  I want to have juicy stories when I get old.  I want to have memories of silly adventures and tons of things I can look back and smile on.  And not just things that included other people, like finding the love of my life, or the day I married him, or my wonderful kids or something.  I’m not saying I don’t want that, I am just saying I want my own accomplishments. 

When I turned 23, I decided that my life was not going to be the way it had been.  I feel that although I was doing things, more things were happening to me, and I was not doing enough.  I didn’t want to sit around and just let stuff happen.  I wanted to make things happen for myself as well.  That was really when my life started changing.  First, I figured I may as well appreciate myself and treat myself right.  That meant not beating up on myself for not being thin or conventionally pretty.  It meant trying new things, and taking steps to be a person the me I was could be happy with in the future.   In the following years I:  Learned bellydance, taught myself crochet, went out on dates, cut my hair, flirted, took silly pictures and posted them on facebook,  learned to cook, made a dress.  

I think a lot. I talk a lot.  I also do a lot.  One of my biggest pet peeves are people who talk and never do.  It’s scary to take a risk, but either you succeed or you fail.  I surprise people because I tend to do.  When I was in second grade I was in the school talent show.  It surprised everyone that I actually sang a song a cappella while all the other students lip-synced to their favorite ditties.  I stood on that stage by myself and sang “Some of My Best Friends are Notes” in a white outfit, hand painted with music notes by my mom’s crafty friend.  

“Life is a challenge, not a competition;
You can still smell the roses and be on a mission.
Just take a moment, get in touch with your heart. . .”

I don’t know what I want to be when I grow up.  I find that terribly problematic.  The thing is, I never feel as if I’m prepared enough to do anything regarding a career.  I graduated college and I felt like I knew a few things about theatre, but not enough.  Like I didn’t spend enough time doing anything, though I’d costumed and directed shows.  I still felt like I couldn’t do anything.  I am afraid that life will be like that when I graduate again, but I’m a bit more willing to throw myself out there and see.  I doubt most people are ready for their careers after graduation.  It’s all a learning process. 

The other reason I have no idea about what I want to be when I grow up, is because when I’m in school, a class will introduce me to something new, and I think Hey!  I want to do that, too, now.  It’s awful.   But really, I know that if I can do anything in the theatre, I’d be happy.  Or event planning.   Event planning and theatre are really close to me.  It’s always a rush to get some amazing piece of art up that will only be there for a while, and then you have to take it down, and do it again with a new play or theme or something.  I like that, always creating, always moving. 

I know one thing; I do not want to work in a school bookstore for longer than I have to.  I sometimes dislike it so much.  It’s amazing how un-smart people in college can be at time.  I leave that job everyday and thank God that I have a job and then remind myself why I go to school and work hard.  So I don’t have to be somewhere where everything is cyclical and repetitive and redundant.  I don’t want to be one of those people who take things so seriously, as some of the people do there.  

“I wonder how life will surprise me today. . . “

I love fashion.  It’s hard to love fashion and be fat, because most designers/stores think you don’t deserve to be fashionable when you’re larger.  Out of all the reasons I’d ever want to lose weight, to have more selection in clothes would be one of the biggest reasons.  That’s sad because most people think it should probably be because of health reasons or something.  But I can be healthy almost at any size if I work at it.   A big girl has to be creative when dressing.  One of my long term goals is to create a plus size clothing line that is really fashionable, not just a regurgitation of stupid fashion rules for fat people, or something made to make us look ridiculous.  I have no idea how or when I will do that, but I really want to.  

My life’s not really that exciting.  I sometimes look around and wish I had a bit of drama to stir it up a bit.  I could use more friends.  I could go out more.  I could be a bit more outgoing. There are big lulls sometimes, where I begin to sit and feel sorry for myself for silly reasons.  I think I’m pretty boring.  That’s one thing I’d like to change, to be more exciting.  Hopefully as I age, I’ll have more stories of excitement to tell.  Right now, I’m just living in the moment, trying to be healthy, happy and fulfilled. 



*Lyrics from “A Beautiful Day” India.Arie