I can’t say I had a bad childhood. It was actually pretty great. The ‘going to school and getting bullied’ part was bad, but even that made me grow up to be the spicy, straightforward person I am today.
Mostly, I don’t care what people think.
But it didn’t always used to be that way. I was a ‘peace at all costs’ kind of girl. Trying to please everyone and, in the end, not being defined by anything, like a person with a personality and talents should be. We all have a personal ‘brand’; a set of beliefs, way of doing things; something that says ‘Oh, that’s that girl who _____’ or ‘that’s that guy who is ____or likes to____’. I was simply, ‘That’s that tall girl,’ followed by a list of names like ‘tree’ or ‘Skinny Sticks’ (If you’re a girl who’s called ‘Skinny Sticks’, revel in that now…it won’t always be that way!).
There are people who have had it a lot worse in life. I know someone who was crack-addicted and a prostitute, and was on their way to a bad end. For twelve years I knew the person, heard horror stories of their stints in jail, and even saw them on the local news once! Normally, you would think this person was dead or in jail now.
Nope. They are thriving, married, full of joy and trusting God. They have even written a book (the pronoun is on purpose, to give further anonymity).
This blog is probably why I included Danny Trejo’s portrait. You can read about him online, but Danny also had a rough, drug-addicted (at 8 years old!), abusive, jail-involved early life. It says he ‘found faith’—I can hope and assume he trusted God with his life—and while the rest was an uphill battle, things got better, and he is thriving now.
This isn’t to say that trusting God is a magic pill for a great life. It’s not. The Christian life can still be as difficult as any other life. But God has given us everything we need when we’re born, the most important of which is free will.
I could have hidden in insecurity and worrying what people think, and would never have done the things in life I have done: done art for rock bands, produced comic books (I’m not done yet!), worked for a U.S. President, gone to strange countries by myself, wrote a book (not done those either!).
For my next trick, I will do the scariest thing possible: holding a tarantula.
There are huge, ‘impossible’ things we dream of sometimes: making a movie, writing a book, starting a business. And there will always be excuses as to why we can’t or shouldn’t, or why ‘the world is too strange now’.
News flash: The world has always been strange. And it will get stranger. All the more reason for you to step onstage and do your thing.
We only get one life. And yes, you can do it. You’re just like anyone else who has done great things, only you’ve got special gifts only YOU can translate into that movie, book, business or whatever it is.
Don’t wait until ‘now’ is in the past. You’ve got all you need to do something great.
