So I'm sitting here listening to Christina Aguilera's album, Lotus, and I'm just realizing how much this album feels like my life right now. A lotus is a sign of rebirth, and I'm very connected to the flower right now. As I've have mentioned, over the past year, I have been working to make myself a better, more peaceful person, and I think that I have succeeded. I think my close friends and family have really noticed. There's a calmness within myself. Yes, I struggle at times, but I am usually able to keep angry or hateful feelings subdued. But despite this, I do still hold my sassiness, which is something I've always liked about myself and I think this album contains all of this. One song I just listened to is Empty Words. This is the first time I listened to it all the way through and I couldn't believe how much the words resonated with me. I gasped when she sings the words "The hardest part of this
cannot be heard or seen.
This journey starts when I begin loving me." I could have written those words. We all know that this was the biggest accomplishment I've made through all this. And, I won't lie, sometimes I
relapse. I mean, I don't feel the loathing I had before, but sometimes I beat myself up for needing to lose weight, for being in a seemingly stalled part of my life.
That's been my biggest struggle at the moment. I constantly ask myself "What the fuck are you doing with your life?" I'm told repeatedly that it's only been 6 months, and that I can't be stressed out right now, that I'm still weak-when will I be ready? They suggest a pt job, but I'm going to be completely honest; I don't really want a regular job right now. (I mean...I don't EVER want a regular job, as I'd prefer just to be an artist, but I'm also a realist. And I don't want to be homeless) Anyway. A job would interfere with the things I really want to accomplish, such as creating my own theatre group here in the Valley, working on my cupcakes, writing, creating things in general. You're probably wondering why I didn't spend the last few months doing all that. Well. I don't have a good answer except that I talk a lot but I'm not very good at getting things done.
So how is now different? Maybe it's not. But I'm trying really hard to stay focused. A friend told me a couple weeks ago that he was sad that I sat at home only taking pictures of my dog. Now, I'm not going to stop taking pictures of Calypso, because, I'm mean, come on, you like it better than looking at everyone's pictures of their babies. Dogs>babies anyway (though I'm kinda insta-obsessed with Em.D too). But the point is that he's right. I'm wasting my life. I may be stuck in my house but that doesn't mean I can't create. He told me that he found part of a story I wrote and that it was really good. Now, my writing is like my singing, like my acting. Any artist is sensitive about their work, but I've spent years questioning my talent in all aspects. To hear him say this sparked something in me, so once I got back from New York I started writing, I took up voice lessons again, and today I had my first audition in over a year. I acted, I sang, I danced. Yes. Danced. To Thrift Shop, which is kinda fricken awesome. I started baking cupcakes with Angie, and we started working on ideas for this musical theatre group. I think the next thing I'll do is actually finish writing a song. Or at least Pick up writing lyrics again. I'm going to start working on my fitness, because then I can't turn to that as an excuse or as a way to bully myself. I think I just needed someone to tell me exactly what I knew about myself because I am the queen of making excuses to myself.
I'm going to try to keep the excuses away and just do all these things I've always wanted to do without me holding myself back.
