I wish life were a musical.

Seriously.  Like I walk down the street and suddenly the corner store is filled with employees who can turn the readily accessible barrels, boxes, and other various things into professional musical instruments.  The business men in the street would suddenly grab ladies in flowing dresses and perform beautifully technical choreographed dance routines.  I’d be able to jump up on a bench or stone flower planter and belt out an inspiring and amazing show stopper that would endear the audience and inspire my leading man.

Hey, a girl can dream, right?  (Don’t say I never told you I was a dork)

It’s something about musicals.  The joy that song and dance can bring into your day.  The melodies that stick in your heart.  The story lines that are about more imagery and themes than most Pulitzer Prize winning novels.   Which is why it is not really a big surprise that I am obsessed with the fall television hit Glee.

And I especially feel for the star, one Miss Rachel Berry.

It can suck when you are good at what you do.  It sucks even more when you know how good you are at what you do.  Know in the way that the high school singing star or starting quarterback knows.  You are aware of your talents, but there’s so much else that you are unsure of and insecure about.

The difference is that in high school you are 17 years old and still trying to figure yourself out.  By the time you are 22 or so, you should have enough of a grip that you don’t need to desperately grasp at these straws for attention and adoration.  Confirmation of your abilities and place in the world.  Proof that you ARE someone and that you DO make a difference.  You won’t have it all figured out, I’m not sure most of us get that in our lives.

You have to make sure everyone knows, so you tell them.  You are an annoying voice shouting into the wind.  Heck, you may be the most “popular” boy in the school but the reality is that most of your classmates secretly loathe you and your superficial ways.  You seem nice enough, but everyone can tell that there is always a selfish motive to your actions.  Or being the prettiest girl.  Did people ever like you for who you really were or did they just think you were pretty and knew that you were the key to their success.

How do you embrace your skills but keep people from raining on your parade?  Knowing that you will not always be able to get what you want?

And never losing yourself in either process.

Don Quixote was an interesting man.

I mean really, the guy went out and tilted at (jousted with for all us folks not up on our Middle Aged fencing terms) windmills thinking they were giants attacking, their windmill blades giant arms flailing at the hero and his little friend Sancho Panza.  In the musical based on Cervantes book “The Man of La Mancha” we try to romanticize his quest with the now standard song “The Impossible Dream.” (PS – This is one of my favorite songs ever…don’t you dare judge me!)

But the truth is, and let me reiterate it, the dude jousted with windmills.  Now I’m not nearly as learned as Quixote, but I used to like to think that I would never be so foolish as to try to beat the crap out of a huge inanimate object.  I mean really, who would chase impossibility to the point of detriment to happiness, self confidence/image and sanity.

Oh, right…

I was chatting with my virtual-boy-BFF about a boy I liked (I know…Elisa likes a boy…let’s hear it…collective “Awwww!”) and he asked what seems like a very obvious question.  “What are you waiting for?  Go for it!”

I then managed to list off in three replies approximately 50 reasons why I could never date this boy.   My poor friend, I feel like he sometimes must just have to shut his laptop, shake his head and walk away for five minutes because I hurt his brain.

My name is Elisa and I joust with windmills.

Whew!  Those groups are right, admitting it really IS the first step.  You feel a weight lifted off your shoulders.  See things clearly.  Realize you are a crazy knight from a Spanish novel creating fantastical and imaginary situations in your head of romanticized and “justified” idealism.

Ok, so now what?  What do you do when you realize that every person you set your sights on has an air of unavailability and inaccessibility that destroys the potential of dating before it even begins.  Setting our sights on guy…friends who don’t like us back, colleagues that you can’t (by company rules) date, boys who are already in relationships and therefore SHOULD be inaccessible, random dudes you pick up in a supermarket…

And more importantly, beyond just dating, why do we as people always try to seek out the impossible dream?  All we need to do is look at the current holiday season and the mania that is “the perfect gift.”  Was Turbo Man really what Arnold Schwarzenegger’s son wanted that Christmas, or did he want to just have time with his Dad whom he loved.

Do we chase the impossible and inaccessible as a way of avoiding or not understanding the truths of the situation?  Fighting imaginary demons rather than facing the real ones the hurt much more and leave us vulnerable and raw.  Avoiding the process and work that dictate much of reality.

Are we all just jousting with our own windmills?

Photo Credit: Getty Images: Altrendo Images

I grow tired of everyone assuming that living in the middle is a life unfulfilled.

Let’s face it…I’d say that 95% of us will never achieve the fame and fortune that we once dreamed of, exactly as we dreamed it.  Which is devastating to our gentle young professional generation.  As a group we were raised to get medals for participation (not winning) at every sports banquet.  Sliding scales and bell curves graded our work “more fairly.”  We’re taught that you should try to find Mr. Tall, Dark & Handsome to find true love (even though there is only a sliver of the population that fits this image we have in our minds.)  We grew up believing anything is possible, if we just try hard enough.

Some of us learned in college, some learned just out of it, some of us are only now learning or still haven’t learned that this isn’t usually the way life shakes down.  Yet we set ourselves up time and again to write the great American novel, discover the next “get rich quick” scheme, meet Mr. TDH in a “made only for romantic comedies” scene and fall desperately in love to make lots of babies, or walk onto the Pats.  There’s a reason I still choke up a little 3,927 views later when Wild Thing steps onto the field to face his nemesis Parkman in Major League II.  We long to know that it is “real.”  That people overcome their adversities and challenges to achieve their own rockstardom.

So if we are most likely not going to achieve our dreams exactly as we envision them, why should we even bother, right?

We should still try and learn and grow because even if we aren’t the absolute best at what we originally set out to do, it is safe to assume the other extreme is not true either.  In other words, we probably won’t be the worst at it either.  We need to learn to find happiness in the space that lies here in the middle.

I don’t believe in settling while we are in the middle either.  As I wrote in final response to Carlos Miceli’s post that inspired this one: “Settling is what happens when stuff ceases to move. I will listen to your ideas most definitely, but unless someone compels me with a great argument,  I refuse to believe that a happy life is one that is not in motion.”

We measure far too much of our success and failure by what others think.  We push for what we think are our dreams, completely oblivious to the realities and circumstances surrounding us.  We adhere to a life of all or nothing, which is an exhausting existence to live.

Instead I urge to embrace the middle.  To constantly adapt and adjust your dreams and beliefs when compelled for good cause.  To never settle and never progress blindly.  That we not live a life without motion nor constantly spinning.

Photo Credit: Getty Images: Michael Hall