Musings from the Stuck

This past year, my girls and I saw The Greatest Showman in the theater ten times. Not a normal occurrence. That's a lot of money to shell out for a movie, but I wanted to let Hollywood know that there are those of us who appreciate a family-friendly movie such as that. I'm very familiar with PT Barnum and all the "bad" things he did, but on the surface, this movie is beautiful and worth taking in.

I listened to the soundtrack this morning with my girls as I took them to school. I'm the type that likes to roll my windows down and blast the music. Share it with the world. Usually it's Styx, but today I was in the GS mood. The song Come Alive came up. The lyrics that struck me were:

"Go and light your light, Let it burn so bright."

​While I would love to "go and light my light," I'm feeling a little stuck. I have a good job. I live in a decent house. I have amazing kids. Financially, we're always behind. (I know...maybe if we hadn't gone to see that movie TEN times, right? Trust me, that's not the issue...) And because of that as well as some other factors, I'm blocked in by walls that don't allow me to "light my light". The roof of these confines is inches above my head and sucking all the oxygen from the room. So there is no light. Only darkness.

I try to find flickers. I live in a completely different universe, writing books very few people read. I perform musical theatre with a small troupe of talented people. But I have to wonder if my light is extinguished. If I'm trying to revive a flame that has gone out.

Long ago, I read a Danielle Steel novel. I don't even remember the title, but I remember a passage.

​​"We all lead boring, ordinary, mundane existences, and now and then a bird of paradise comes along, and we all get scared. It scares us because we're not like that, Our feathers aren't brilliantly hued in red and green, we're brown and gray, and seeing that bird of paradise makes us feel ugly, or as through in some way we've failed. Some of us love to watch that bird, and we dream that one day we might be birds of paradise too...others of us have to shoot at the bird...or at least frighten it away."

That passage meant a lot to me as a young, single just-out-of-college girl who dreamed of having a boyfriend. I was doing some amazing, bird-of-paradise type things, but I was ridiculously lonely and needed to make myself feel better in some way. I still have some of those red and green feathers, but they are neatly tucked away under my brown and gray. Just like hiding in the dark. So I can't be seen or noticed.

More lyrics caught my ear from the song The Other Side. 

"But you would finally live a little
Finally laugh a little,
Just let me give you the freedom to dream,
And it'll wake you up and cure your aching,
​Take your walls and start 'em breaking..."

The freedom to dream. Doesn't that sound delightful? I think I've lost that. I sure wish I had a PT Barnum who believed in what I have to offer. Someone who could give me the platform to shine with all that is in me.

Now, I'm not writing this to make you feel sorry for me. I write for my own therapy. To process things I need to work through. And it's been a while since I've blogged, so I thought this might make a good topic to re-launch. I want to get unstuck. And I'll figure out a way. I always do.  This is the start, right?