Isn't that the Mamas and the Papas? I can hear Mama Cass singing that. Eventually this title will tie into what I have to say today. Meanwhile...
“If I can do it, YOU CAN!!!!” People say it all the time. It's a lovely way to build someone up, to have a pep-talk, to pour belief.
Yeah. I just thought about it.
Truthfully, it's just not usually the case, you know? “If I can do it, you can.” Not sure who THAT'S putting down more – me, or the poor soul I'm trying to fix. I will readily admit there are several things I do well, and that not just anybody could do. I don't, by any means, think I am “all that.” I just trained to be good at some things. And if just anyone can do all of the things I can do, then I really want my money back that I spent on college.
My ex-husband used to say that my degree and fifty-cents would buy me a cup of coffee.
(Not the coffee I like to drink...)
(Which, of course, I totally gave up. And my fingers are not crossed.)
My degree – Music Performance (Vocal and Piano) doubled with a Graduate-Bound English Major was meant to be a stepping stone to higher education. Finishing the degree was... well, it was bloody. Picture a maimed critter, limbs dangling, head gashed and bleeding. It was bloody finishing it. I was ridiculous and unforgiving to myself. I somehow decided that I had to continue trying to prove things to the world. This meant finishing this double-majored obstacle course in eight semesters only (my personal goal). I figured if they could finish four-year-degrees in the olden days in FOUR YEARS then I really ought to as well...
I carried twenty-one credits my final (eighth) semester while my fellow ninth-semester classmates were taking their last-minute general studies in the 100-level category, totalling eleven credit hours and stuff, partying on weekends and blowing things off a bit. I counted one-hundred-twenty pages of papers that were due from said twenty-one credits in the week before I walked the length of the fieldhouse to take, in hand, my certificate of completion.
I do not wish that on anyone, by the way.
By the time I graduated, I was too tired to dream anymore about all the cool things that had caused me to take on the crazy challenge of this artistic road to my future in the first place.
And, of course, I was married and dreaming about babies and happily-ever-after already. :)
So, I am mean and all that. I don't believe that simply because I can do something, that means you can.
Here's what I do believe, though: I do believe that anyone who dreams can achieve.
I dreamed of having babies. And wah-lah!! My dream came true. (I have since learned that this dream cannot be undone.) Actually, I'm not serious about this. I have precious friends who dreamed this and were unable to bear their own children. They adjusted their dream and have since adopted, and I mean no disrespect or flippant disregarding of the pain they endured by my silly phrase.
I dream of a way to teach people in my circle of influence how to go ahead and grab 'hold of their own dream and chase it. I know how to dream. I know how to fall into a dream and let it fill me with just enough life, just enough strength, just enough of the special glittery magic to reinforce the outline of my spirit and give me just enough juice to travel the next mile of the dusty trail into life. Have my dreams broken my heart? Yes. Have I failed at things I thought I should be able to accomplish? Repeatedly.
“Where there is no vision, the people perish.” I have heard this quoted hundreds of times in my life. I think it's biblical. Whatever it is, it's a truth.
We must dream. We must press forward. I am very sad to see the tired, hopeless faces of persons who let go of their dreams. I am even sadder to see these walking-undeads sucking dreams from the natural-born dreamers: the children.
But ponder this: How can we achieve our dreams if we are slaves to our physical body? If we are unable to move, if we hate ourselves based on our weight, shape, size, texture, color, features, etc., how is it that we can stretch and reach for impossible and daring dreams that we hope will fulfill us?
I am more and more convinced that the journey to a true makeover is ultimately about changing the way we view ourselves. Do we really need to be skinnier, smoother, sleeker and shinier? I read an especially delightful article once about weight and women. The doctor who wrote it (sadly everything escapes me at this time, but I promise I won't reveal anything that only this doctor is privy to, so I won't somehow be liable for not citing him properly) said something about the fact that people are always trying to use scare tactics to get us to be thinner. Women who are obese (which can be, like, not very heavy according to some insurance charts) are increasing their risk of dying from (insert scary way to die...) by 100%. According to my calculations, this means you are twice as likely to die from (insert scary way to die.) When these (scary ways to die) are researched, it can be found that the original risk was something like: “One percent of women will die from such-and-such.” Really? So two percent? Twice as many? A hundred percent more than one percent is, literally, two percent.
So, ladies, if you like to be soft, stay soft!!! If you don't like the way the world makes us think we need to starve and eat less than our children and certainly way less than the men-folk, then don't buy into it! As previously mentioned in one of my blogs, lots of men-folk prefer the curves anyway.
If, however, you do not like yourself because you want to be slimmer, or if you find that the huffing and puffing to bend over and tie your shoe is an issue, or find the inability to go to an amusement park and sit in a ride because the seatbelt won't fit is frustrating or embarrassing, then maybe a makeover isn't for the charts or the men or the doctors or the diseases or the blog.
Maybe it is something just for the person who lives inside of you.
That person is the one who, more than anyone else in the whole wide world, deserves to be indulged. Give that little girl her canvas on which to paint. Give her a stage on which to sing, or pages to write. Give her the cloud to dream... and when you draw her in your dream place in your mind... go ahead and give her the body you know she deserves to have (high-school-tiny, or hairless in the nether-regions if you so wish, or tiny tattos on a beautifully sculpted lower back, or firm muscles in her abdomen – anything you dream and see.)
My inside girl knows she (the collective “we,” actually, which includes my outside girl) deserves to be a certain shape.
It is really cool doing a makeover for me. I am not doing it to impress anyone. Because I'm doing it for me, I don't worry about how great or how horrible it's going. I just want to like myself.
When I like myself, I dream better things for myself.
So... Back to the first thing I said... “If I can do it, you can.”
No.
If YOU can do it, you can.
You just gotta dream it – whatever it is. Then eat that elephant one bite at a time. (Or starve the elephant one bite at a time. LOL.)
Just so you know, this isn't the only dream I currently have. And making the babies wasn't my only dream that came true...
Until Next Blog,
Laura Lee
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