NYE Thoughts

Sometimes nothing can prepare you for the pain of stepping outside the cultural script.

But being able to tell your partner that they’re more important to you than New Year’s Eve, and to hear the same…. that’s worth something. That’s worth a lot. Even if it’s not a midnight kiss.

In a culture which tries to sell us the perfect holiday picture, we can’t lose sight of the fact that the holidays are rarely perfect, even if you’re monogamous.

At the end of the day, I want a relationship, not a fantasy. I want to love an imperfect person and be imperfectly loved in return.

Christmas Thoughts and Fearless Women

Sometimes I think I could let myself off the hook more.

Maybe doing what I love can be enough.

Maybe I should stop worrying so much about whether what I’m doing is the most important thing I could possibly do, and worry more about if I feel alive.

I want to feel that joy and exuberance Julia Child felt when she graduated from cooking school, and again when her cookbook was published.

And if I was full of that joy, maybe I’d have the energy for something else, too.

Thoughts on Bullying

I was bullied mercilessly growing up. It wasn’t until middle school when I was in class with the other smart kids that I started really having any friends. Having someone to defend me meant a lot, even though the teasing continued. Yes, I am smart. Yes, I am fat. Yes, I do have hairy legs. Yes, my accent was different from that of my classmates. The difference is that none of those things actually (should) impact my ability to be loved. None of those things make me an inherently bad person. And that is what no one ever told me when I was 12 years old.

Hello, Again

Overall, life is going better for me. Being in therapy is making me realize how far I’ve come with developing coping mechanisms, and that’s positive. I am slowly creating the kind of life I want. Just more slowly than I thought.

I’m still not where I want to be creatively. It’s just hard to have the brain space to think about crafting performances when I work so much. And I have some creative people in my life, but I’m not surrounded by a creative community like I was when I was in school. It feels harder. I am rusty and less brave or willing to make mistakes as a result.

Book Review: Not My Father’s Son

Not My Father’s Son, a new memoir by bisexual actor Alan Cumming, is at once poignant, honest, heart-wrenching, hopeful, humerous, devastating, and affirming. That may seem like too many contradictory emotions all at once, but in the book, Cumming details a particularly difficult and emotional span of time in his life. The book centers around […]