"Let Him Fly" and a few other things...

Happy New Year!! Yes, I know, I'm a little late to the party, but I tend to do things on my own timetable (go figure). I had written down some intentions for 2012, and if you read my end of the year blog you might remember seeing this...



So how am I doing? Well, I don't really like to judge my progress. Ha, who am I kidding, I judge everything about myself, so don't think I haven't tallied up my successes and failures with these intentions. Biggest failure? How about forgetting I made the list all together. For some reason I thought that if I wrote the list, added a pretty border, and posted it as my computer wallpaper, they would somehow osmosisively (yep, probably not a word and I'm totally okay with that) become a part of my life. Guess what, and I've learned the hard way, if you don't work at something, it ain't gonna get done. That being said, I have accomplished some of these intentions (without remembering I had made them at all) but I won't bore you with all my successful moments, since they are of the tiny, tiny baby step variety.

Honestly, I cannot take total credit for all the small progress I've made. Sometimes my friends have, oh shall we say, nudged me to get my butt in gear (do more, think less). Incase I haven't mentioned it, I have great friends, some of them are in this crazy business like myself, and many are not, but that doesn't really matter. What does matter is their love and support, and that they make me do things I don't really want to do, because it's good for me. Last Monday night they dragged me to an open mic. I can't exactly tell you why I didn't want to go, but I just didn't (I know, it's weird for a singer to not want to sing somewhere, right? But that's the fear...what if I'm not perfect (I haven't rehearsed with this pianist, what if people don't like me or worse, ignore me all together)! Singing is truly one of my absolute favorite things to do, like ever...especially when the song it over, lol. The best way I can express it is to say that it's like riding a roller coaster, it's the scariest thing but when you get off the ride, you just cannot wait to do it again, or have a glass of wine). I'm so happy I went. I sang Patty Griffin's "Let Him Fly" and one of my favorite lines in the song is 'It took awhile to understand, the beauty of just letting go'. Ah, letting go! That's really what this post is about.

Turns out, the hardest thing on my intention list seems like it would be the easiest. Why the hell is it so hard to let go? Why do I need to feel like I have to control every situation, or the outcome of everything and everyone? It certainly doesn't make me feel better or relaxed or confident when I try to force something to happen. In fact, it makes me more anxious and I feel like utter crap. And let's face it, we can't control much (not another person, not the economy, not winning the lotto, not when we'll have a baby, not when we'll get a new job). Just like I can't control what role I get, whether I'll be on Broadway or on television or win an Oscar, when I'll meet the love of my life, nor if anyone will ever read this or share it with someone else, but I still write it, because the only thing I can control is the showing up (and not just to a place, but actually showing up for myself) and doing my best. Then I have to let it go because the result is out of my hands. A friend's grandmother says "Let Go and Let God" and I love that (I also know, not everyone has a relationship with God, so if you don't feel comfortable with that word, replace it with a word you do feel comfortable with, I'm sure He won't mind)! For me, I know in my heart there is a plan (that everything happens for a reason) and that plan has a much better ending than any one I could dream up, but I still have to show up. And, quite frankly, even though I believe it, it's still really hard to trust it, have faith and to let it go.

My nephew posted this on his Facebook page this week and it resonated with me so much, I knew I wanted to include it here, "I have to learn to have enough faith to trust in his grace and to trust in his sovereign and perfect plan. I had to submit my will, my desires, my dreams —give it all up to God." Jeremy Lin said it, and unless you've been living under a rock, I'm sure you've heard of this kid. He plays for the Knicks (and if you have been living under a rock, please google him, he's Linsane). Then in the paper yesterday, he is quoted as saying "I hate having a bad game, so sometimes I need to remind myself just to let everything go and just to be myself, have fun and just give my best effort". Isn't that all any of us can do? Let it go, and maybe even "Let Him Fly"...

The Attack of the B.F. and other "Wicked" things.

“I've heard it said that people come into our lives for a reason, bringing something we must learn and we are led to those who help us most to grow if we let them and we help them in return. Well, I don't know if I believe that's true. But I know I'm who I am today because I knew you.” –Galinda from Wicked.

So another week has come and gone. The first full week of the new year actually. Is this where we start to see how our resolutions are going? In my last blog I wrote “We need to focus on the good stuff that we bring to the table. When I'm negative about myself I hold myself back from all that I could be.” On New Year’s Day I promised myself that I was gonna stop being negative about myself. So how am I doing? Hmmm, not so good. I actually kinda forgot about it. But I was quickly reminded by friends Saturday night that I have taken some steps back.

You see, last week a few of us went shopping for bridesmaid dresses and we took some pics of the occasion. Upon looking at one of myself in the dress that we will wear in the wedding, I discovered something peculiar…I have back fat!! YES, I do! Sitting here, writing this now, I cannot believe that I’m going to press publish post and freely admit to the fact that I have back fat and well, seven people may actually read it and know that I have back fat. But its true, clear as day in that picture, there it was. I noticed it three years ago when I was in another wedding, but quite frankly I'd forgotten I had it. Now that’s the funny thing about back fat (lets just call is b.f. from now on, okay?). See b.f. is tricky cause you can't see it from the front (um, yes I know that's a very Captain Obvious thing to point out) but it makes it difficult for the person who has it to know that he/she has it. It makes me think, how many other people have seen my b.f. and I had forgotten all about it?

So you might be wondering what this has to do with anything. I’m not really sure except for that fact that as I sat there zooming in on that speck of b.f., my friends told me to stop it. We all admitted that we are all so hard on ourselves. So I promised to try & not say another negative thing about myself for the night, I lasted less than 10 minutes. I realize, of course, that this is an extremely superficial thing to be down on myself about. But isn't that what we do? We find a tiny thing that most people probably haven't even noticed about us and we blow it out of proportion. Then we feel bad about ourselves because of it. Sure this is a silly example and when I got dressed this morning I didn't think of my b.f. (I didn't think about it when I ate that bag of Doritos last night either) but in that moment, looking at that picture, it made my feel negative about myself and that's gotta stop!

So why is it that our friends can see the good things in us and we can’t? That’s why we need to surround ourselves with the right people who love and support us. We need people to say, “Shut up” and “Stop being so hard on yourself” or “You’re making the same mistakes over and over again, maybe you should stop”. If we only saw ourselves through the eyes of the people who love us, I think we’d be better off. I’ll try harder this week not to beat myself up as much! And even though I'm hoping the b.f. it just the curse of the bridesmaid dresses and I only have it when I wear one of them, I just might start doing some push ups to be sure (the wedding’s less than a year away and exercise is supposedly good for you)!

And on a quick career note, I have decided to submit a play for a One Act Festival in NY. If it's selected it will be performed in March. There's only one tiny issue, I don’t have a One-Act written yet. So I gotta write one. The play must be post marked by January 30. Guess I gotta get on that. I'll keep ya posted on how it goes.

Have a great week!

-Roxy (B.F.) Strago ;)