Merry Christmas?

Have you ever had a Christmas where it just doesn't feel like Christmas?  The tree's all decorated, the lights are up, the presents are wrapped, the cards are signed, the Christmas story's been read, etc., etc.  Yet even with all that, there's just no joy, no excitement, nothing.  That's how my Christmas started out.  When I was woken up by one of my dogs licking my face, it felt like any other day.  I knew it wasn't, but that's what it felt like.  It made me think of those days when I was little kid and I would run into my parents room and jump on their bed till they woke up and we would go open presents.  I miss those days of simplicity and of belief in Santa.  Things really were easier in some ways.

When I finally hauled myself out of bed and got out of my room and wished a Merry Christmas to the rest of my family, my grandmother responded with, "Doesn't feel very merry does it?"  I knew exactly how she felt, but saying it out loud just added to the depression I already felt.  It was hard not to dwell on the fact that Grandpa wasn't going to be there.  Thanksgiving hadn't been nearly this hard, probably because about half the family wasn't able to make it anyway.  For Christmas though, the entire family was showing up, including my mom's mom who suffers from dementia.  Eleven people, a permanent odd number for the first time in twenty years.

I Chose This

 (Brief random warning: This is my kind of defying the world speech, just so you know.)

More and more I'm discovering that the career I've chosen is probably one of the toughest out there.  Not necessarily physically or mentally or anything like that, but emotionally.  When you work so hard to try to get that part in that play or movie that you really want and you feel like you've done a good job and then you find that it was all for nothing, it's crushing.  You feel like a failure.  Or, at least I do.  But what if that's what you love, if that's your passion?  You keep going.  You cry those tears and then you pick yourself up and keep going, keep trying hoping that in the end, all your hard work will eventually pay off.  I've known that this was going to be a hard road, filled with a lot of disappointment and pain.  I've always considered myself to be a fairly strong person, able to push back the pain, the tears and put that smile on my face even when I felt like I was falling to pieces.  My choice of career is going to test that.  Am I going to be strong enough to suffer disappointment after disappointment and still be able to pick myself up and keep going?  Is my determination enough to get me through?  And with that, do I have the strength and will to finally begin the seemingly impossible task of losing all the weight I have to lose to try to fit in to the skinny world of Hollywood.  I've had people tell me that I'm choosing the easy career, that it doesn't really take any kind of effort to act.  But it does.  It's already tested me in so many ways.  So many people don't understand what it's like to get inside the head of a character, to become someone you're not.  I can do this and I will.  I'm going to prove to the world that I am strong enough to do this.  I can become one of those skinny Hollywood girls and I will.  Just watch me!