No, You're Not Crazy, But There's a Little Black Swan in All of Us

So I have temporarily broken my trance that was caused by my excitement over our new, massive and sweet dog, because I got to have a girl's afternoon with a great new friend.

And we saw the movie Black Swan. O...M...G. I'm not going to ruin the movie for anyone that hasn't seen it, but there were so many amazing things that came out of this movie that has my mind spinning.

Despite the fact that it occasionally scared the bejesus out of me (yes, I put BOTH hands in front of my face several times throughout the movie - and thankfully, I had a Stella to drink to distract me during those times - I can't say the same for my pregnant friend with her lemonade :)), there were a few things about it that really stuck with me.

First, the drive for perfection is in every one of us (I think...). Who hasn't been driven crazy by their own mind the night before something big and REALLY IMPORTANT. I never knew why people had to take sleeping pills until I was in my late 20's. If you have never had to take one, then you are lucky, and hopefully you never will. But I think out of the drive for perfection can come great and beautiful things, but also can be just plain awful in the process, and you don't really know if 'it's all worth it' until you succeed and someone pats you on the back. Because I think I'm not the only one that needs a pat on the back every now and then, and has external factors that feed majorly into my self worth. I'm getting better at giving myself 'pats on the back' but really who does that on a regular basis if you aren't like Stuart Smalley.

Secondly...I'm going to tell you that I was a scared little kid when I was growing up. I was very shy. I hid behind my mom's legs when strangers approached me. I used to think that 'bad guys' were going to come out of the woods behind our house in Reston, and honestly, it took me a really long time to make the transition from an introvert to an extrovert, and I think now I'm somewhere in the middle. So my point in saying this is the fact that I over-analyze things, and I totally get the fact that sometimes situations will make you want to throw up, like in the movie Black Swan, when Nina got so stressed she had to run to the bathroom. Thankfully, I haven't done that in a REALLY long time. Yoga helps keep me in check when I take the time to do it. Let's just say right after 9-11 when I was out of a job for 3 months and interviewing non-stop, and not being hired, I went from a size 6 to a size zero because I couldn't keep anything down. I'm telling you, it's no way to live. Pressure absolutely keeps the weight off. At least for me. But it was a valuable life lesson that I survived, which has made me a much stronger person now.

And I'm not writing this to say I'm ANYthing like the main character of Black Swan, but I think that just about everyone can relate to extreme pressure, and great expectations that are placed on us either by ourselves, our parents, or people that are close to us. And a lot of times it helps us work very hard to be better people, and to be more successful. You just have to try to keep it in check and accept and celebrate your victories as rewards when they come, because that's what you are working for. And listen to this song when you get down, because it's a great pick-me-up (at least I think so). Oh, and it makes me want to dance and sing loudly.