...without a song or dance what are we?

It’s December first and I’m just posting November’s blog. November was unusually busy with work and trying to raise funds for the show I wrote. I did write a blog and it would have posted on time had I figured out what the heck I wanted to say. It turns out that blog was coming from a place of negativity which made the task of putting a positive spin on it almost impossible. Like I said there was a lot going on.

Awhile back my friend Lisa had noticed that I had become very negative and very depressed. Nothing was going right in my life: no love, no job no nothing. So she challenged me to post one thing I was grateful for everyday for 123 days.

Every day for 123 days I would post something I was grateful for along with a countdown to number one. Some days it was difficult. Others it was easy. By the time the final days came around I was constantly searching for something to be grateful for. All day long I would literally think I’m going to post about being grateful for this or for that. The whole day was spent being grateful. After the challenge was over I really missed posting about my gratitude.

Doing this challenge altered the course of what was happening in my life.

When it came time to blog for November I didn’t want to do the usual Thanksgiving, count your blessings thing. Been there done that. Besides I was so angry about a few things that had happened and disappointed by what more than a handful of people had done or didn't do as the case may be. The only things that came out while writing my blog were, let’s say, not nice. Or inspirational. Or helpful in anyway whatsoever to anyone.

I thought about the people who would read the blog. What would the high schoolers get out of it? And I remembered seeing a picture on Facebook that said “be the person you needed when you were young”.

All through elementary school I was a star pupil; kind, polite, reserved, you name it I was it. Through a little trick I maintained a straight A average. I’ll share that trick another time, maybe. At any rate, in the fifth grade I was reading on a college level. In the sixth grade I would finish the entire days’ worth of school work within an hour. I was lucky enough to be chosen to “student teach” the kindergarten classes in the afternoon. I think they did that just so I would have something to do.

I had tons of friends

Junior high came and things started to change. My trick for maintaining high grades wasn’t quite working. I actually had to do a little homework, but just a little. I joined clubs like the Yorkers, a New York State historical society club and Junior Achievers, a club for future entrepreneurs.

I had a few friends.

Then High School happened. And as fate would have it, High School started for me before puberty did. I was left behind by my “friends” because of all the hormones flying around. I say “friends” because in elementary school my “friends” only wanted the answers to the school work. In Junior high school my “friends” only wanted to borrow money. None of which I ever saw again. And now I had nothing to offer those “friends”.

So there I was starting High School friendless. There was only one high school in my area. All the kids from three different junior high schools were stuffed into one building. (I say stuffed like it was some huge sort of thing. There were only 350 people in my graduating class). My whole safe small middle class world was blown apart. There were kids there I had never seen before. Attitudes I had never encountered. Rich kids from a part of town I didn’t know existed were there. My mother knew them. She was friends with their mothers. And she knew that if I were to succeed in life I needed to have an edge on them.

Immediately my mother started with her insistence that I do stuff that looked good on a college application. I would go to school, hate every moment of it, then go home and be nagged at about my grades and homework and what I did or didn’t do for college. My brothers and sisters were a nuisance at best. They were star athletes, scholars and popular. Then there was me, the middle child.

I focused on everything I didn’t have and everything I wasn’t. And it got to be overwhelming.

I decided that I wasn’t worth the space I took up on the planet. It was time to give up that space and let someone more worthy have a little more room to live and thrive. I decided that I was going to kill myself.

One night I was alone in the kitchen. I took a steak knife out of the draw. With both hands I grasped it. I aimed for my heart and took a deep breath...

“Just one more day.”

A voice in my head said just wait one more day.

So I did.

The day started out just like any other day. I had no prospects, no desires, no needs and no dreams. I was just there. My dad woke me up. I got ready for school. I had breakfast with my mom. And again she started in with the nagging about joining a club or doing something that could be put on a college application. In order to get her to shut up I promised I would join whatever club had a meeting that day.

Off I went to another day of hell in high school.

In homeroom I listened to the announcements closely. If nothing else I was a man-child of my word. Whatever club had a meeting, be it the chess club, or swim team, or descendants of Egyptian kamikaze sumo wrestlers, it didn’t matter. I would choose one and I would join.

Luckily, there was no choice to be made. Only one club had a meeting that day. Only one club was looking for new members. If you’ve read the very first blog I posted, or visited my website you know which club it was. But just for clarity sake it was the Drama Club.

Soon I would have a purpose. Soon I would have goals and dreams and a group of friends that liked me for me. And thank god soon after my 16^th birthday, puberty hit. With doing two major musicals a school year, my life made sense.

Flash forward X amount of years and here I am. Do I still struggle with all the things I struggled with in high school? Sure. Those things don’t go away. I just learned how to deal with them. And all the while I’ve lived life. I’ve traveled around the world, performed in several countries, lived in Europe, toured the United States with shows, met some amazing people, had the show that I wrote performed in New York City with people from and destined to be on Broadway. I have an apartment, I have a job, I have a career. And I have friends, great friends from all over the world, that love me for exactly who I am. All this makes me feel special.

I now realize I’ve always been special. And guess what? So are you. Everyone is. The trick to Life is finding where your special fits into this world. And trust me it does fit somewhere. I know it does because I found where mine fits. It just takes time to search for that place. 

The holidays can be rough for so many people for so many reasons. As the season begins in earnest, let me be that voice in your head that says “one more day”. Let me give you the hope and strength to find where you fit in the world.  Take all the time you need. There's no rush. You have your entire Life to find it. And once you have, always be grateful for it.

#1...

"...I say thank you for the music..."