Living Your Lottery Life

I'm in this high-end coaching program called the Bigger & Better Life Mastermind. BBL for short, but NOT Brazilian Butt Lift, lol (even though I desperately need one after dropping forty pounds in record time.) It's ten amazing women, and we've all come up with projects to do over the course of the next six months to rocket our lottery lives forward into the stratosphere of greatness. (What if every day could feel like you've won the lottery?) Unsurprisingly, it's with my life coach, Dorothy, and culminates in a retreat in Pensacola.

Six months earlier, I had met up with her in Pensacola for a day of one-on-one coaching, in which we decided I needed to take some time off before this program started to lay back, and enjoy the fruits of my labor, (so to speak.) It was time to enjoy actually living in the house I had built, to revel in all of the hard work I had already done on myself. She talked about how easy it was to burn out in the "self-help" culture because we're always tinkering. We're always working on changing the next thing, building up to something better, and thus, we never get to enjoy arriving.

So what did I go and do? Not that! I got home and went to work on my body, FINALLY releasing the baby weight I had spent an entire decade holding onto. I carried on with dedicating myself to creating a community around me. I formed a knitting circle (in addition to the book club I had already started.) I joined an adult ballet class at my daughter's studio, and started socializing with those ladies after class. (And suddenly, I was finding Minnesota to be a much more enjoyable place to live!) Most importantly, I joined a cause. I started volunteering my time to rally my airline to form a union, which gave me a sense of purpose and community with fellow activists.

I focused on my marriage, and healed it to the point where I would legitimately rank it as an 8/10 on the marital satisfaction scale. That's amazing, compared to where we were a couple of years ago. I still want to work on romance, sex, and getting the "honeymoon phase" back, but I honestly feel like I've won the husband lottery. I couldn't be more grateful to have my partner, THIS partner, for life. He's the best father, and the best decision I've ever made. I tried to mess it up, and the universe wouldn't let me, and I'm so lucky to have found him in the first place. With the right partner by your side, the world truly becomes twice as abundant- in both opportunities and joy.

For awhile, I was considering making my Bigger Better Marriage (BBM) the focus of my BBL project. But then I realized that with an 8/10, while there's still always work to be done, that's actually one of the strongest categories of my life currently. 

As we were considering projects, Dorothy asked us what we would do with our lives if there were no limitations at play. If we had no fears stopping us, and money wasn't a factor, what would we do? If we imagined that we had just won the lottery, and she could wave a magic wand, and *poof,* our wish was her command, THEN what would we do? That was an easy answer- I'd perform on Broadway! It's always been my dream. So why wasn't I doing it? Logistics, right? Isn't the only thing that's holding me back the knowledge/fear that I'm not good enough? 

Maybe that's not all that's holding me back, though, because I DID actually try on that life. I was a full-time professional actor when I lived in Chicago. So I could argue that if I WAS good enough, I would already be there. (Even though Dorothy would say that was an invisible ceiling.) I had a high school acting mentor, Roma Mafia, (GREAT stage name,) from such shows as "Nip/Tuck," and "Pretty Little Liars," tell me that all it took was tenacity, and that people self-eliminated. I didn't understand what she meant at the time, and I was excited when she told me that, because I knew I would NEVER quit, (that was the one thing I knew for sure.) Because I had a love, a burning passion for performance, and nothing (and no one) was going to take ME out of the game!

Well, dear reader, I quit. Another amazing piece of advice I received in high school (that was also wasted on my youth) came from my (not abusive) voice teacher, who told me to carefully guard my flame, and not to let "them" extinguish it. She warned me that college could be a treacherous place for an artist (in the gentlest of ways, did she warn me, not wanting to dampen my excitement for higher education.) And hot damn, was she right! The university system for fine arts is toxic as fuck. And it sure as shit chewed me up and spit me out. After the fact, I found auditioning out in the "real world" (the place my professors were preparing me for, and warning me about,) to be a much kinder and gentler place. And so, I often wonder if I would have been better off just moving to New York at the tender age of eighteen, and spending all that money I would've saved on tuition, just paying for voice lessons and dance classes on the mean streets of the city, and not languishing in the classroom, wasting my good years. 

Oh well, hindsight is 20/20. And who knows? Maybe I would've been far too immature and couldn't have handled myself in the Big Apple straight out of high school. Besides, it was the end of the 90s, and we were all OBSESSED with four-year college degrees, something that (as a flight attendant, hairstylist, performer, and multi-level marketer as my main four careers) I've had absolutely no use for, now at the ripe ol' age of 43. Thanks, Mom, for forcing me to get that Bachelor's Degree to "fall back on." I salute you!

So there I was- at the end of my fifth year of college (yep, it took me an extra year because I studied abroad my junior year,) and I was BURNED OUT. I honestly never wanted to perform ever again. It was the first time in my entire life I ever felt that way (but not the last.)

It was a vicious cycle that would continue throughout the course of my life. That visceral pull to the stage, the need to create, the desire to perform- and so I would, for awhile. But the gig life is HARD- toxic, and competitive, (I developed an eating disorder.) And it's tough to rely on your body to make a living; your appearance, the heath of your vocal cords, etc. There's so much rejection- and so much that's out of your control. Maybe you weren't right for the role because you were "too short," or you "didn't look right next to the leading man," but most often- you just weren't given an answer as to why you weren't cast. You could be the most talented person in the room, and STILL not be cast.

But being the most talented person in the room is also a completely subjective measurement. So that, too,  introduces another element of uncertainty, and self-esteem destruction. (Yet another reason people self-eliminate from the field.) A spreadsheet starts to look pretty good, with its linear equations, and precise measurements. The 9-to-5 begins to sound appealing when you have no idea where (or how much) your next paycheck is coming from. And you're not getting paid for the audition grind, which can be a full-time job in and of itself. Being independently wealthy, or scraping together multiple side gigs is the only way to make the hustle happen, and how do you find the time if you're working three jobs already just to survive?

If you, like me, had a horribly abusive teacher or director at some point, (and I bet you did, because they're rampant in the industry, ESPECIALLY in the university system) who was determined to knock you down a peg, I'm sorry that you're probably in therapy now. And I'm sure you didn't deserve it, because as artists, we're naturally sensitive souls, with a tendency to already be hard on ourselves, and self-critical. I'm sure what you really could've used was a nurturing teacher. There's this common belief out there- held by dance teachers, choreographers, acting professors, etc, that only by tearing you down, and destroying your self concept/identity, can you then be built up in their image. I know we're just starting to shed a light on this gross power dynamic in Hollywood, but is anyone looking at the university system?

As the old saying goes- "those that can't do, teach." So are they just transferring their bitterness onto their students, or is it more than that? Is it the continuation of a toxic cycle? This is what was done to them, and so they pass it on, and just like that, a generational trauma circle is closed. 

Take a look at my first love, ballet, where these type of skewed power dynamics and structures run RAMPANT. Boys and men in ballet school are treated like pampered princes, while girls are treated like a dime a dozen, expected to be meek and subservient. Although women make up the majority of the art form's performers and its audience, they hold no power. Men hold all of the leadership roles, from the board room to the artistic/executive director positions, and are making all of the decisions about the future of ballet. 

I suppose if I HAD ended up in NY at age 18, pursuing a life in the arts, (on Broadway,) then I wouldn't have the life I love now. I would never have met my husband, and I wouldn't have my beautiful kids. When I think about the true reality of performing on Broadway- (8 shows a week,) I don't actually want that. I don't want to give up being a flight attendant, or the flexibility to work as little or as much as I want. I often say that if I won the lottery, I wouldn't quit my job. I love the flight benefits! I love to travel, and I love the variety each day brings (unlike doing the exact same show over and over again.) And THAT, my friends, is how you know you're living your lottery life. And so it's true- I'm already in my dream career, and there's no need to change anything about that.