Have you ever gotten a song stuck in your head that you really don’t want to hear?
Boy, that happened to me yesterday, and it was awful. It wasn’t even a song — it was a commercial jingle for a contraceptive product! It comes on quite a lot during the time slot of some of my favorite primetime network TV shows, and so usually, I can fast-forward through it. But the other night, I was watching a show in real-time and so the first little bit of the ad entered my brain like an aggressive earworm while I was fumbling to find the mute button.
The commercial features this happy-looking twenty-something girl wearing a bright yellow dress and sandals who declares, “I foooound a birth control with no hormooones!!” in a very high-toned singing voice. Thankfully that was the length of the earworm, but as I was watching the commercial unfold in silence, I thought, “That girl must really want to be an actress if she’s willing to sing such a dippy song and dance around with a tiny IUD contraceptive in front of a national television viewing audience.” And then I thought, “Good for her! You go, girl!”
After all, embarrassing commercials are how a lot of actors get their start in Hollywood.
Bryan Cranston got his start with a Preparation H commercial, and I remember this horribly awkward Massengill Feminine Douche ad featuring one of the actresses on 90210 (Gabrielle Carteris) back in the day. Truthfully, she had a bit of a dull part on that hip show, but still — she made it to the big time! But it kind of made me start thinking about origin stories.
Everyone has one.
Even if you aren’t in pursuit of an acting career or something people will one day notice, you still have an origin story that set your life in motion and matters to you and the people you love. So many things happen to each of us along the way that can alter the movements we make along the pathway that we each get to call “our life.” And, that’s so fascinating to me…
Not long ago, I was sitting with this adorable 12-year-old girl I had just met. Her father is a friend of Lou’s, and she was out running errands with her dad. I happened to know that her parents were separated and things were heading toward a divorce. I’m not sure she really understood what was happening, but as I looked at her hands, I could see how she was changing from a little girl into a teenager, and something about her spirit kind of wormed its way into my heart.
As I sat there next to her, this extreme sadness came over me. Someday in the distant future, when this girl is my age, and she talks about her childhood, she will have to say, “My parents got divorced when I was 12.” That event in the lives of her parents will alter everything about her life and theirs going forward. And I don’t blame her parents or anyone else — because relationships are difficult, and no life is ever lived without pain. But as the story of life unfolds for every human being, it keeps pulling each us of further and further away from our origin
But such is life, right? It’s’ never just about us. There are millions of moving parts that work together like a crazy, unpredictable gear of some sort, and no matter what happens, no one can stop the gear from grinding on.
Sorry for waxing a bit gloomy today.
Truthfully, these thoughts actually inspire me on some level. I feel like I’m kind on the first chapter of my latest origin story as an author, and so I’m noticing everything, and I’m wondering how each thing — even the mundane and boring things — will influence the next chapters of my new beginning. My main story is still on my mind, too, but all of the things that have happened in my past seem to have shaped me and given me some steadiness as I wait for the next plot shift that’s coming my way.
It’s actually kind of exciting to see how things could unfold for me when I think about it! Nothing is guaranteed to happen for me, but the possibilities are all around me — I can feel them! The optimistic girl that has always lived inside of me feels encouraged today because I’m doing something that I love to do: I’m writing!
It kind of makes me want to put on a yellow dress and sing and dance!
(But I probably won’t!)
