Details are the Darndest Things

Details are an extrordinary thing. 

I’ve NEVER been one for details.

 It’s really just not in my nature.

I like to be the easy going girl, the one who just goes with the flow.  I’ve always been a bit of a gypsy. 

Had I grown up in the 60’s I surely would have played a guitar across the country, worn long beads and braids in my hair,  fought for love and not war and lived the life of a hippie.

Life has always been so exciting to me that way,

 It just “takes you” places if you let it. 

Details to me are like the antagonist of an exciting adventure. 

Like Captain Hook in never never land, or the wicked step sisters in Cinderella. 

In my perspective details have always put a dull spin on my life in and have always claimed the  ‘freedom” of me just being me.

I really have always known this, but there were many tell tale signs along the way that supported this solid truth about myself. 

For example when I was banned from writing the specials on the board  at the restaurant I worked at for many years, because my spelling was all phonetic.

Really……Why is it important if its spelled exactly right when one can simply sound out the words?  Besides the way I spelled it may not be right but it is certainly much more exciting than seeing that word the same way ever single time!

To be a detail oriented person means that you pay attention to every little thing.  No matter how miniscule it is.  Nothing slips by you.  You pay very close attention and make sure things are PERFECT.

 Bleeeeech. There’s that word.  Perfect.  Makes me cringe.  It’s a love hate relationship I experience with perfection. 

I know I  am not, nor will ever be so.  But for some reason there is this deep need inside of me to want it,  and I don’t even know why.

Funny how life almost always gives you what you need, not what you want.

Event Planner was one of the job descriptions that was  handed to me when I got my promotion at work.   I was sincerely excited because really….i would be in charge of planning fun times for loads of people!  One thing I know about myself is I am a fun girl! I KNOW I can create funness!  If my middle name weren’t Helen( to carry on my Grandmothers name) and my mother knew my personality when I arrived, she most certainly would have bestowed upon me the middle name FUN!  So really…..if there’s a little planning required on the side to embellish this FUN project, then that would be ok.  Piece of cake!  I have GOT this thing!

That was my perspective for merely a day.

If I could have “called uncle” or “tapped out” I would have already done it on day 2.

I quickly had to accept the notion that this was going to be a lot harder than I originally perceived. I would need to commit fully to it, if I was going to succeed and succeeding was my plan indeed.

If there was an “Event Planning For Dummies” book I would have read it front to back 3 times, done all the exercises and memorized it and would be able to recite any chapter on command.

 I may not be detail oriented…..but I most certainly will be prepared!!!!

Unfortunately for me no such book exists.

So I did the next best thing I could think of.  The thing that any new event planner would do who needed to find whatever it took to prove her ability, show people her talents, and most of all make sure she doesn’t get fired!!!

 I watched the Wedding Planner with Jennifer Lopez. 

Surely Hollywood’s version can give me at least SOME valid insight into planning a big event.

With the tools I could learn from this movie, along side the knowledge that there would be an open bar and we could get people drunk quickly so as not to notice all the glaring problems throughout the night…..I may be able to pull this thing off.

I might even be great!  And maybe look like Jennifer Lopez while doing it!

I was however both humbled and disappointed as  time went on when I realized how very different Jennifer and I were.

Apart from the obvious cultural difference of  Jennifer’s Sultry Latino heritage and myself , who has been called “wonder bread” by my friends for a reason, there were also some elaborate differences between us.  For example…..

Jennifer Lopez

Stunning, fresh looking skin, soft features, hair perfectly combed back without a single stray hair.  Her suits perfectly pressed at all times and dresses always accentuating her sexy legs.  

Mission:  To look good no matter how bad things get or how stressed out you are to ensure peoples perception of you being that you have it all together all the time! 

Erika

Even after having brushed my hair the crazy rampage of the morning inevitably would mess it all up. 

The creases in my forehead went from fine lines that could be reduced by the constant application of oil of olay, and quickly started resembling deep caverns created by daily facial expressions that co-existed with reactions like…..

“ OMG I thought we dealt with that.”

“ You have GOT to be joking!”

 and

“ Oh I see, so this thing we just spent 3 days working on and perfecting is no longer useful because somebody decided it would be FUNNY to change it all and see IF WE CAN PULL ANOTHER MIRICLE OUT OF OUR ASSES!!!!!”  

My clothes were often a fine combination of shaking as many wrinkles out as possible, spot cleaning and fabreezing the shit out of everything I owned just cause I didn’t have time to do laundry half of the time.  And although I feel that my legs are my best feature as a woman, I knew that if I sported any of my cute dresses to work, the question around the water cooler would have been “Is it possible that Erika may  be a man?”

Mission:  To get through my day without going postal and being taken away in fancy jacket with locks.

Jennifer Lopez

Conducted herself in a sweet and calm manner at all times and even in the most strenuous of circumstances, still had it in her to find inspiring words from the heart that would give people around her the strength they were looking for and live a happy life!

Erika

On my good days I dropped the fbomb only a handful of times, I often ran 

( yes ran) through the office, and I’m sure my co-workers came to recognize that panick stricken look on my face that would eventually find its way to me daily. 

By the end if someone came to me with a question it took everything in my body mind and spirit to calmly say,

“No problem…..let me look into that for you”  instead what I was DYING to say.

“ OMG COULD YA DO ME A FAVOUR…BRAD?  JUST FUCKIN GOOGLE IT!!!! 

Inspiring words are often my strong suit.  On the night of the big event many people came up to me and asked how I felt about the party now that all the work is done?  I should have said something about this amazing experience, light in the midst of darkness, looking into the future with hope and possibility. 

The only words I could muster up that was straight from the heart was…

” Where’s the tequila people….I am going to need a lot of it!”

 The truth was that in this moment of my life, all of my yoga experience, all the breathing exercises I had learned, hot baths and serene Jazz music I surrounded myself with, couldn’t dissapate the stunningly obvious insecurity that daily consumed me.

I can do a lot, I have conquered a lot, but I don’t think I can do this.

I was wondered  when they were gonna wake up and realize they picked the wrong girl for this job. 

Yup.  An open bar was really gonna help me I think.

I am NOT detail oriented and had never even been to the Christmas party.

The only 2 things I really had going for me at this point was the Christmas plays I would choreograph all of my family members in each year ( I think they still haven’t forgiven me for that)

And Martha Stewart’s party  planning tips.

I knew in that moment I had to make a decision that would define my character for years to come.  Very much like the time I shaved my eyebrows because I had not yet learned how to pluck and they turned out looking like MC hammer brows with the line through them, or the time I put cheap self tanning lotion all over my body and not only did it turn orange, but I put actual fingerprints all over my body. 

I would have to say to myself….

”Someday….this too will be funny.”

I was suddenly swimming in a pool of details.  Things I had no idea you had to think about.  Every detail you put into place and every decision you made had an outcome.  

Suddenly I realized that for the past couple of years I have not been that free spirited girl I thought I was or used to be.

 I have been trying to conduct the details of my life so much so that I’ve lost sight of what’s actually important. I stopped somewhere trusting the bigger picture, my gut, and my heart and I have driven by fear of slipping up a detail or two that would put me somewhere I didn’t want to be down the road.

This party I was planning was full of details.  There was no way around it.  And even with immersing myself in them, doing my best and working so hard to make sure everything was “perfect” I still fell short because there are always unforeseen things that you don’t expect.  That’s life.

Perhaps the truth of this is for me is about trust.  Trusting that I am exactly where I am supposed to be.  Trusting that there is a plan for my life.  Trusting that the details will work out in exactly the way they need to without having to orchestrate them.

Maybe I need to let go of  trying to be the conductor of  my own life and just be responsible for courageously walking it. 

“We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned,
so as to accept the life that is waiting for us."
~Joseph Campbell~

Choose Your Own Adventure

Do you remember the Choose Your Own Adventure books?  

They were a series of children’s books where each story is written from a second person point of view.  You, the reader, assumed the role of the main character  and as the book unfolded were able to determine the plot and the books outcome.  Essentially, You are the star of the story and you can choose from 21-45 possible endings!!

 It was a revolutionary concept in the 80’s (yes I realize I am dating myself here) But really, who wouldn’t want to feel like you had complete control over a fantastic adventure?

I’ve come to realize my life often feels like a choose your own adventure book.

If I go with a) on page 3 that will lead me to want to choose d) on page 26) which will likely make me feel jealous and frustrated which will direct me to choose c) on page 34 but in the end I will want to be loved which entices me to choose e).

  I attempt novels like I attempt life.  Once I get the gist of where things are going…..I read the ending because something inside me just HAS to know what will happen in the end. 

What is that!?

With the choose your own adventure books you couldn’t do that.  The ending depended completely on the choices you made along the way. 

What is it about life that makes me have this obsessive need to HAVE to know where things are going to go?  Why cant I just let things just be.  Because……if I know, then I can control them!

HA!

No I can’t.  No one can.  Not even She -Ra princess of Power could. 

 But I still try with all my might. 

Here is an example of a typical senario in Erika’s head. (These are actual events)

Senario: 

Agent “Erika, that casting director wants to see you for this part of the desperate church girl.  They think you’d be funny in it.”

Response to senario:

“OMG ok, desperate church girl, sure I can do that.  I know what its like to be desperate.  And I’ve gone to church. This could be it.  This could be my break.   Im gonna go in and rock this audition! “

And if only it could stop there…….

“Ok but, what happens if…….

       a)    I go and totally mess this up, forget my lines, start spouting out a memorized version of  Hamlet that I’ve been working on and they laugh at me and tell me to start auditioning for male parts.

b)  I remind the casting director of his ex girlfriend who cheated on him, stole his car and flushed his favorite fish, Fishy down the toilet.

c) They think I’m too fat and they talk to my agent and suggest that I would be better suited for the commercials about diet pills

d) They look at me like I forgot to get dressed that morning

e) I did forget to get dressed that morning

f)  I’m too young

g) I’m too old

h) Look like Julia Child

i)   What if the gum I’m chewing for the part gets stuck at the back of my throat and it blocks my airway and I choke and nobody knows what to do and they call for help in the audition room and the only guy who comes over is not someone who is a doctor but he did play a doctor in a CBC movie once and just as I come  to the brink of passing out he hits me hard in the chest ( I think he was trying to do CPR?)  gum flies out, saves my life( and my cherry bubalicious) carries me out of the room and somewhere between the real doctors putting in an IV my abnormal thoughts because of the Morphine for the broken rib he gave me when he hit me in the chest,  we fall madly in love with each other and live happily ever after. 

This can all happen in about 45 seconds. 

And just like in life, after exhausting EVERY possible options in my head (and trust me there are a lot)….things rarely go the way you think. 

You know what ACTUALLY happened in that senario? 

I booked the part. Out of 25 other girls in a role that I didn’t think I had a chance in, with a casting Director that had never seen me.  I booked it.

HA!  Didn’t see that one comin.  Didn’t plan for that one at all.  Now what? 

Do you think I could sit and enjoy just the excitement?  Ummmmmm……nope.  Why?  Because now there was a whole new senario to deal with, companying a new set of possibilities and ways it could be executed.

Its exhausting, its emotionally trying, and frankly slightly retarded, but mostly its my way of holding on to what I think is MY version of how my life is and how it can go.

And because the whirlwind inside my head is so loud and so real and so fast……I actually miss what is going on right in front of me.

So here is what I am learning.

Life if full of choices that are constantly laid out infront of us and they have a domino effect.  You can can plan, make choices and forsee what you think is every possible senario that you might be faced with so that you are prepared.  But at the end of the day, the truth is what is right in front of you.  Not what you can conjure up with the amazing imagination you have. 

In life you can be faced with countless choices, but You cant read the end of the book.  You just have to enjoy the story and see where it takes you.

Ummmm......Who's life is this anyway?

I have spent the past 2 hours pouring over definitions of what our society deems as a Drama Queen. And I have found there are no real positive connotations towards it. Selfish, attention seeking bitches, who makes a big deal out of small situations....over bearing loud personalities. I even googled drama queens, and there are drama queen forums, self-help books on “how to stop being a drama queen”, Quizzes you can take to see if you are a drama queen, actors that are drama queens, there is even a website on how to kill a drama queen.

All in all, it doesn’t leave a good taste in anyone’s mouth. So I have decided I am going to make up my own definition of a drama queen. Why? For what purpose? Who am I to re write a definition that is already there?

All good questions. And my answer is…… Because.

Middle Aged Drama Queen ( from Erika’s dictionary)

A Drama Queen is a woman who although she may come across as overbearing, strong willed, defiant, and over reactive is actually just sick and tired of stupid people and their bullshit and instead of running around with a chainsaw sawing their limbs off, slashing tires, punching many, many, many people in the face and sometimes in the junk, Chooses instead to vent her emotions in a more realistic, appropriate and frankly less bloody manner.

Yes by that definition I am a Drama Queen.

Sure, I have a tendency to over exaggerate about meaningless things. I am often lead by a deadly combination of my imagination and feelings, rather than by my heart or my head. I have many “Ally McBeal” moments where I imagine myself to act out in something in my head that I would never do in real life but really want to.

The truth is life is not the fairytale I imagined. Its messy, its chaotic, and just when things start looking up WHAM!! You have Tonya Harding taking you out at the knees.

So far the only thing constant in my thirties has been change. It’s like Ground Zero. Everything I have built up, been thinking of, dreaming of, and working towards, the loves that I’ve had and lost, the travels I have been, the things I have accomplished....it all had meaning and now, I don’t know what to do with it.

I feel like a snake that has shed its skin. Except my problem is I have taken the skin laying there and pined it up on my bulletin board thinking I must be able to make a coat out of it and put it back into my life somewhere.

I have trouble letting go.

The thirties is an awkward stage where if someone calls you “Ma’am, or Lady” it makes you cringe because that’s what people call your mother. And even though you still have those cute short shorts that have been sitting in your closet waiting till you had the guts to wear them out, you know that every passing year you would be one step closer to “inappropriate”.

Indeed, the catcalls get less and less and when they do happen, you are so elated that you wanna shout back “yeah that’s right baby…I still got it!” Or when you go to the dark pub with low lighting that hides the crows feet you have started to accumulate with great speed, they ask for your ID and you are so excited you scramble to get it out spilling everyone’s drink including yours.

There are bigger consequences to EVERY decision you make in your life. That Linguini Carbonara is soooo good, but lets face it, its gonna show up sittin around your waist in a matter of hours. If you go out for a night of partying you used to be able to drink a mickey of peach schnapps, dance all night, stay up till the sun came up, take a 4-hour nap and do it all over again. Now I start yawning after one glass of wine. Relationships become more serious faster with more baggage in tow and are more heartbreaking when they don’t go the way you expected.

It was really only a few short years ago that I felt was heading somewhere BIG, I was going to really BE somebody. I really didn’t know where I was going, maybe not even totally sure what I wanted. But I knew one thing for sure. I was going to be AMAZING!

Well here I am sitting in a coffee shop, spilling my heart out in a blog that I thought was only for computer geeks with no lives, just after loosening the top button to my jeans because I ate that burger and onion rings instead of going for a run. I am listening to soft music that I would have rightly classified as “Soft rock” only a few years ago that only old people listened to. And I’m thinking about weather it was 4 or 6 weeks ago that I last did my roots to cover up the extreme white hair coming through.

But most of all, I’m wondering what it is I am looking for, and more importantly…. will ever find it.

I’m trying to remember What was it in my 20’s that gave me that hope, that ZING, that life inside that kept me going and said, this is pretty good now…but just you wait Erika Conway, You will realize your dreams, you will become everything you have ever wanted. You will become stronger, better, You will find someone who loves and adores you, and kisses you with background music in the rain (no I did NOT just finish watching the Notebook) when you get to your 30’s you will be truly happy!

BULLSHIT!!!!

What was I thinking? I thought I had grown out of my “princess” stage. I thought I was being realistic about my dreams.

Disney said

“Have faith in your dreams and someday, your rainbow will come smiling thru. No matter how your heart is grieving, if you keep on believing, the dream that you wish will come true.”

It wasn’t so long ago that those words were like a flowing river of hope into my soul.

And now? Well Walt Disney is dead, and the hard cold truth is…I’m not a princess. I’m not the maiden of a Disney film and no I will defiantly not see Prince Charming Riding over the mountain top on his white horse any time soon (Unless of course prince Harry accepts my offer of being his saucy brunette on the side in the countless letters I have written him. Haven’t heard back yet…will keep you posted)

No the reality is, I am Erika Conway.

Drama Queen? On many occasions.

Charming? Without a doubt.

Broken, Insecure and messed up? More than you know.

Happy? Still workin on that one.

A fighter of truth? Yes.

Believer that ice cream and wine can heal many wounds? Oh yes.

Still believe in love? Sigh Yes.

Maybe this journey isn’t about getting somewhere. Maybe its just about letting go and accepting all that you are with open arms and letting the rest figure itself out. I don't know what it means, but i hope that somewhere between that pint of Ben & Jerry's and me having the courage to step forward into the unknown.....I will be able to just be ok with me. Drama and all.

Erika Conway

Drama Queen Extraordinaire.