Passion

"Above all, be true to yourself, and if you cannot put your heart into it, take yourself out of it."

The other day, thanks to GI Jane, I had a pre-job interview meeting. This guy at her company is looking for an Exec Admin and she talked to him about me and set up a meeting. I certainly wasn't super stoked about it, but was somewhat interested just to see what this guy was like and if I'd find something I liked. Unfortunately, I didn't. There's a great chance that I am not what he's looking for, which is totally fine. I'm absolutely okay with that. As we talked, the only thing that kept running through my head was "Why am I here?". He seemed a bit smarmy, if you will. Jane warned me of his deep breathing, extensive eye closing, etc, but it was still difficult to sit there and take him seriously. BUT, I will say that a few things he said really stuck with me. He was talking about IT and all of these things that I know NOTHING about, but kept going back to the idea of "Passion". He works about 70 hours a week, and without passion for his work, he doesn't know how he would survive, or feel that it was worth it. Yes. Absolutely, sir. I really have no passion to be an EA. I don't think that the full-on corporate world is for me. I don't know why it took a second visit to this place to realize it, but it's true. I don't know if I would be able to conform to this extremely quiet office environment. But I also don't know if I could do this job as this man needs. And that's okay. I am glad that I can admit that this isn't for me. Not saying I want to stay at the Bux forever, but for now, it serves it's purpose for me, and as much as I hate the way some of the customers make me feel, I do enjoy the interaction.

What am I passionate about? And how do I go about using those passions to fulfill my life?

I am passionate about changing my life. I am passionate about my friends.

I am not nearly as passionate as I used to be about singing. I love to sing. I feel great when I do it, but I don't push myself as I used to. Am I afraid of failure? Am I lazy? Am I afraid to put all of my heart and soul into something to only have it dissolve? Yes.

I am throwing my hat back into the audition ring this weekend. I am auditioning for 2 different productions of "The Secret Garden". I absolutely love this show and really hope that I am cast. This is the first time I'm auditioning with my new headshots and my new self. I really feel that I won't be turned away because of my size. I feel like I am in the normal range now and can only hope that it won't be about MY looks. I know that auditions are subjective and that it's rarely about ME. How do I look with him? How do I sound with her? Blahblahblah. But maybe, just maybe, I'm who they are actually looking for. :-) THAT would be a victory.

Sometimes I think that I'm doing things for all of the wrong reasons. Andrew and I had a pretty deep conversation this weekend concerning the early stages of our wedding plans. And we both realized that we were on the fast track to nowhere. We were trying to please people and were moving far away from "us". I feel like I do that in my life. I do things because I "should", or because I'm expected to. In this conversation we realize that our families play a large part in how we act, especially with them. Andrew gets into the "sullen teenager" role at times with his family. We know that our way of life is very different than other people. We don't own a car. We don't own a home. We get by, but aren't rolling in the dough. Despite all of that, we are happy. We are in love and looking forward to our life together. We try to stay optimistic about things, but reality often smacks us in the face. Sometimes I feel like I have to apologize for the way I live. Just because I don't have the material things that are "necessary" in life doesn't mean that my life is a waste. We like living in the city, or close to it. A yard might be nice down the road, but right now, it's not necessary.

There I go. Apologizing. Rationalizing MY life. It's MY life, get over it.

Why do we do that? Why do we feel like our lives, our choices aren't good enough? In essence, are we apologizing for ourselves? Is this a self esteem issue? And again, this brings us back, full circle to why I eat. Or ate. Nah, eat. I still emotionally eat. Certainly not as much as I used to, and not the garbage that I used to. But I'll still eat to feel better. I self-medicate. I eat when I'm bored. The good thing about not having a lot of food in the house is that I can't binge eat. Do I want to? No. But are there times when I want to say "fuck it" and just do whatever I want. CONSTANTLY. I want to do this for me. I want to learn to change. I want my brain to get rid of the messages swirling around in there. I've said it before and I'll say it again...old habits die hard. And as I see that things stay very much the same for my family, it makes me want to change my life all the more.

I live a few states away, but in this day of technology, you'd expect to be in touch with your family constantly. I am not. I've been in Boston for 6 1/2 years. And in that 6 1/2 years, my mom has visited me a few times, as money allows, but other than that, no one else has come to see me and my life. The wedding will probably be the first time that they see my day-to-day. It's hard to watch your family be so wrapped up and involved in each other's lives and feel like a complete outsider. Was it my choice to move away? Yes, indeed it was. I've been rather independent since moving to Indiana, PA to attend IUP. I never felt a pull to stay in Langhorne, PA. I made the choice to leave, and I suppose, by doing that, I chose to leave them all behind. I feel like I am that 2nd cousin at the family reunion that you don't really remember. And then there's my mom. She's much more negative than I ever thought. I didn't really notice it until Andrew pointed it out to me this weekend. Life is hard for her, i get that, but what mother wouldn't ask anything about her own daughter's upcoming wedding?! Is she mad at me for getting married? Does she think that life will hand me what she got? I don't know. All I know is that I'm not asking for money, I just want support. No one has money to give, I get that. I never once mentioned money to anyone. It's not like the old days when you got a dowry with your bride. Andrew and I realize that we will be scraping together whatever we can to have the wedding of our dreams. We won't be putting ourselves into major debt over it, but we expect to deal with that as we come to it.

I know that love doesn't pay the bills, but it certainly makes you feel better about yourself. Love from yourself, love from your friends, your family, etc. You can't expect to do everything by yourself. Everyone needs love, and transforming that love, spreading that love, sharing your passion with others is the way to better your own life.

You don't know it, but you've probably inspired someone to make a change in their life. Good job.