I Wanna be a Rockstar!
I’m a total American Idol fanatic. I’ve been watching since the first day of the first audition of the first season.
Maybe its because I always dreamed of being a rock star. The only thing that held me back from achieving pure musical stardom was my tone deafness and complete inability to dance with any rhythm. Also, my fear of making a fool of myself, my indecisive nature, and that fact that my daddy told me no. But, mostly, it was the singing.
Luckily, with the advent of reality TV, I can live my life vicariously through watching singing and dancing make-me-a-star shows such as So You Think You Can Dance, Idol, America’s Got Talent, and The Voice. I don’t watch Dancing with the Stars because…well.. they’re already stars and in no need of my adulation.
Once of my most favourite American Idol ‘stars’ was William Hung of Season 3. William shot to fame with his expert rendition of She Bangs first made famous by Ricky Martin.
Do you remember this?
William Hung was so bad he was good. Plus, he was so personable, and so innocently nerdy and untalented, you just couldn’t resist his charms. Inside though, I was a bit horrified that he’d gone on tv and sang She Bangs all the while gyrating like a robotic noodle man. I was mortified for him.
Then, I realized that Mr. Hung took himself to Idol to act foolish. There was no way in heck he actually thought he was a good singer. Nobody forced him to go on national television and sing and dance like nobody was watching.
He craved stardom, just like me, and a jillion other people. But, unlike me, who listened to everyone else who was telling her to stop singing immediately, William took the microphone by the proverbial horns.
( I know you were wondering whether I’d put up a video of me singing at this point. And now you know..I won’t. But not because of my fear of embarrassing myself. It’s because I recently received a lecture from my teenage daughter about boundaries and the concept of locating some.)
I’ve been thinking that the hardest things in life to do are those that seem scary, or crazy or giant leaps of faith. I’m tired of hesitating before making decisions, waiting, pondering, mulling. Often times, I stay in difficult or unpleasant situations because I’m just too chicken to get out of them. I can see how people stay in bad marriages because they just can’t find the courage to leave. I can say from experience how people (like me) stay in unpleasant working environments because the thought of not having that paycheque, or of people thinking you’ve failed (nobody likes a quitter) is way scarier than what waits in the office each morning.
I’ve decided to be a little bit more like William Hung, and do things that make me happy, consequences be damned.
I need to honour myself, my needs, my sanity. I’m done getting physically ill from stress. I’ll officially put it out there that I’m a patsy no more.
The other day, I extricated myself from a situation that I’d let go for too long, but in actuality not as long as I normally would have. I was unhappy, was completely frazzled to the ends of my last nerve.
I debated, vacillated, and and then I took the plunge. For the first time in my life, I took to my Idol stage like a true rockstar wannabe, bit the bullet, and took the bull by the horn, never mind the consequences or the ill will my actions might cause.
After I did the deed, my husband looked at my face, and said, ‘You look just like William Hung’.
HA! No he DIDN’T!
What he said was, ‘I can see the relief on your face. You did good.’
PS to all those people who are used to me, I’m still a people pleaser. Just of the crap-free variety.
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