Thursday, January 7, 2010

Don't Rain On My Parade

Well, we did it. If you're reading this, you successfully made it a whole week into the new year. CONGRATS! How are those resolutions? haha! Don't worry, mine isn't going so well. Still haven't done a new thing.  I keep thinking of the things I do, but nothing's new.  So I can't write about that.

But something that's bugging me is how much I let things bug me. Is that ironic? Or a Catch 21? I'm not really sure. (Check out a video explaining how Alanis mislead us about the concept of irony @ http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1925705). Anywho, I was listening to the 2nd Glee Soundtrack on my drive home from two days of Christmas up north with my family. I was going on family overload and not looking forward to work the next day and this song came on and make me think of adopting it as my "anthem" for the year. *I need to preface this by saying I love my family to death and no matter what they do or how angry I get at them, they'll always be family and I'm so lucky to have them.* The song was, "Don't Rain On My Parade." Lately I've been feeling like I'm really coming to my groove of "being me." I'm actually okay with who I am, there are even days that I love me! :) Not going to lie, coming out is tough. You might get over the initial reaction of realizing and telling people, but it's a huge change within. Like I once told my roommate, Willie, it's sort of like I'm 6 years behind everyone mentally and emotionally. For straight people, hitting puberty around 12 you deal with a whole bunch of new stuff, hormones, being attracted to the opposite sex and hair sprouting everywhere! While I went through physical puberty around the same time, I didn't get to validate my "gay puberty" until I came out in college. And so this is where I get to apologize to everyone who's experienced my mood swings in the past couple years....SORRY! They're getting better...except at work...which is a whole other blog! haha!


Back to the song. So I finally love me. And it's hard when I go home and know that I'm loved with an asterisks. That's to say that I know my mom loves me and would do anything for my happiness, but she would rather ignore the fact that I'm gay. I'm not sure if it's a generational thing or religious thing, but whatever it is, it kills me. She thinks she's protecting my dad by not letting me tell him. And that's her prerogative, but I hope she knows that's shes doing just as much hurt as she's trying to avoid.


So here are some of the lyrics to the song that I really connected with:


Don't tell me not to live, just sit and putter
Life's candy and the sun's a ball of butter
Don't bring around a cloud to rain on my parade

At least I didn't fake it, hat, sir
I guess I didn't make it
But whether I'm the rose of sheer perfection
A freckle on the nose of life's complexion
The Cinderella or the shine apple of its eye
I gotta fly once, I gotta try once,
Only can die once, right, sir?
Ooh, life is juicy, juicy and you see,
I gotta have my bite, sir.
Get ready for me love, 'cause I'm a "comer"
I simply gotta march, my heart's a drummer
Don't bring around the cloud to rain on my parade,

I'm gonna live and live NOW!
Get what I want, I know how!
One roll for the whole shebang!
One throw that bell will go clang,
Eye on the target and wham,
One shot, one gun shot and bam!


So I leave you with this. Be you! Don't let someone tell you to smile if you don't want to. Live and live NOW! Life can be short or it can be long.  We don't know.  All we have is now.  If you can't be you and love being you, what's the use of trying to put up the charade?  Don't fake it...people know.  And absolutely don't let anyone rain on your parade!

Happy first week!
later days
-Ted

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