Being The Star Of My Own Life

"I realized at once that a great actress can never be greater than when she's starring in her own life."  ~Flavia de Luce in "I Am Half-Sick of Shadows," Book 4 of the the Flavia de Luce series.

I love the Flavia De Luce series.  I am on the fourth and last book of the series and the whole series has been most wicked.  It's wizard writing, most witty.  I highly recommend it.  But as I was reading it this morning, I came across that above quote and it awakened something in my own soul.  It first called to the burn survivor in me and then it quickly sang to the part of my soul that is actor through and through.  Flavia couldn't have said it better: a great actress can never be greater than when she's starring in her own life.  Hearing that makes me want to be a better star of my own life for if I can't be a star in my own life, how can I possibly be a star in the world?  It may also help me get out of the funk I'm in if I step up to be the star in my own life.

I often feel like a complete slug, not even a supporting character but rather in the chorus of my own life.  That just isn't right.  One should be the star of their own life.  One should never play second fiddle to someone else in one's own life.  It's important to demand the leading role and demand the big, private trailer.  Otherwise the role you play in someone else's life is no greater than the one you play in your own, even if it is a leading role in someone else's life.  It is your own life that the credits and first billing counts.

I have not been playing the leading lady in my own life.  Not even a supporting or character role.  I've been in the background of the chorus just coming on when I'm supposed to and saying the four word lines at my cue before slipping back into the background to disappear.  And in my own life!  It's sickening to me on two levels:  1) that I'm settling for background work in my own life and 2) that I'm settling for background work in my own life when I'm a leading lady to the core!  I've played a lot in the chorus but I've always known in my heart that I was a leading lady and I got a chance to prove that several times in the theater, both in my younger life (high school and college) as well as my adult life (New York projects).  And when I got my chances to prove that it was like a cat call to my acting heart and soul.

So why have I settled for the background of the chorus in my own life?  I've only done so since my accident and it's because of my accident, because I don't see myself as a leading lady much anymore what with my scars and all.  When really I, above all else, should at least be the leading lady, the star, of my own life.  I want so much to return to film and theater but right now that just isn't in the cards for me.  I've got surgeries and healing going on.  But in the meantime there is a spotlight I shouldn't shy away from...the spotlight of my own life.  I need to step in, raise my head and embrace my own life like a star in the greatest drama since Gone With the Wind was in 1939.  If I can't be the greatest movie star since Meryl Streep right now in the real world that I've so desperately wanted to in my heart, the least I can do is be the best star in my own life until and still even after I make it again in the real world.  Flavia's got a real point there.