June 11, 2018 The Perfect Time for a Dream to Come True!

As Leazetta  Rose, I have applied to perform in numerous burlesque festivals both in the United States as well as in a couple of other countries.  I have been applying for festivals for 3 years now.  Before I started applying, I asked my mentor, "Do you think my act is good enough to submit for festivals?"  I didn't want to submit something that wasn't festival worthy.  I also didn't want to over estimate myself.  I wanted to be real.  More importantly, I wanted to be professional and honor the stage.

Rejection letter after rejection letter came.  I cried over so many.  Others I just read and moved on.  Some I was more invested in, while others I did on a whim and decided that if I didn't get in, I wouldn't take it personally.  But that is the thing; art IS personal.  It's something an artist gives birth too.  And if it's something that has been created, not just choreographed, by me then it really is something personal.  If the costume is made by me, if the idea is my own, if the choreography is done by me...all of it makes it personal.  So when someone says, "Thanks but, not thanks."  It can hurt.  This year, I applied for a festival I thought for certain I would be a shoe-in for. Not because I'm amazing, but because it was a festival geared toward women of size.  I thought, If I could get into any festival, it would be that one.  Mostly because I thought I wasn't getting into festivals because of my size.  I didn't get into that festival.  I don't know why. They never (in my experience) have told me why. But my fellow performers assure me it could be for any reason like too many performers with the same colored hair or costume.  It could be anything.  And for this particular festival, the act I submitted, I decided was too "obvious".  I submitted my "This is me" act...an act that is so very personal.  This is the act where I get the most raw and the most real.  This is the act where I get as naked as possible and show the most skin and highlight my scars, stretchmarks and fat.  So yes, I can see where in a festival geared toward women of size, putting an act on stage that celebrates that may be redundant.

My self confidence has also been taking a little bit of a beating when I see local shows being created and I am not being asked to perform. I realize I can't be in every show. I'm not asking for that.  But I feel like there is some kind of disconnect. The producers of these shows are telling me that they like what I am putting on stage.  They are complimenting me (after they have told me before that they don't compliment unless its amazing).  Yet, I am not being cast for shows.  What am I missing? Is it personal? Am I not edgy enough?  What am I missing?  No I have not had the courage needed to ask them point blank.

With that said, I have been blessed with some incredible opportunities.  I got to perform at the Orpheum Theater in Twin Falls to a sold out crowd. It was amazing!  I also got accepted into my first out of state "weekender" competition. I submitted my Creepy Mary Poppins act, and it was accepted! I was so stoked! I felt like I was finally getting seen. But even then, I felt like I got in cause it was someone local to Boise producing it. She has seen me perform twice, including that specific act once. When I thanked her for accepting me for the show, she told me it was my talent that got me in.  I have to believe that. I want to believe that. My confidence needs to believe that.

I had also applied to a few other festivals that I really wanted to get into.  I was getting rejection letters right and left.  Some hurt.  Some didn't.  I was encouraged by my mentors to apply to festivals in Europe. I was told my "This is Me" act is perfect for Europe. I am not sure why they thought so. But, I believed them.  So I applied to Bristol Burlesque Festival, in England.  The casting emails were suppose to come by June 1.  All submissions would be responded to by June 14th.  June 1st came and went with no email.  I assumed I would be receiving a rejection letter in the next 13 days.

Yesterday, I saw that my performer email had a new email.  I opened it and saw it was from Bristol.  I thought, "well, there it is, my rejection letter." But then I kept reading the little teaser line that pops up in email, and it wasn't looking like a rejection letter.  I saw the word,  "pleased" and "invite".  My heart jumped to my throat.  I opened my email, and sure enough, "This is Me" was accepted and I was invited to perform on Thursday, September 27 at the venue called Smoke and Mirrors in Bristol!!!!!  I got into my first actual burlesque festival AND it's in ENGLAND!!!!

This could not have come at a better time.  I am currently recovering from another concussion.  I hit my head on Mother's day and I have been scrambled ever since.  Sometimes with concussions, you can have a personality change. I'm not talking a personality change like Dissociative Identity Disorder.  It looks more like, all of a sudden you like things you didn't like before.  Or you start hating things you used to love.  You can become mean or nice or whatever.  It just changes you. Sometimes those things are permanent and sometimes they stay for a while but revert.  In 2013, when I hit my head and had a horrible concussion, once I "kind of" recovered, I tried to go back to my Zumba instructing and found that I HATED Zumba.  This was an exercise I LOVED so much that I became an instructor, and then all of a sudden I hated it.  It crushed me.  There were other things that had changed too, and they scared me.  When I talked to the doctor (back then) she blew me off and told me it was nothing to worry about.  She was wrong.

Fast forward to now.  I'm a month out of bonking my head.  And in the last 2 weeks, I have been struggling with burlesque and dance in general.  I have really been feeling like I need to quit.  Not because I wasn't getting into festivals or on stages but because I felt my personality shifting from the concussion.  I was beginning to feel like I felt about Zumba.  It was scaring me. Burlesque and dance have given me so much. What would my life be like without it? Last week, there was a big burlesque show here in town.  I almost didn't go. But I wanted to see the out of state performers that Stella Sin brought in, and I wanted to support my friends.  I was also hoping that it would kick this shift that was happening on its arse and let me be.  Sure enough, by the time the show was over with, I was feeling it again.  I was ready to think about burlesque again and I felt happy and light.

Then the next day, I had a burlesque photo shoot for promo shots. I guess its a good thing, my  head got back into the game. But it was also that day that I found out that the Broadway musical Tracy and I had planned to go to in NYC for our anniversary in July had been cancelled.  I was bummed. But I had just been talking to Tracy about possibly cancelling that trip because we are buying our house and money need to be going to that right now.  So we just decided to cancel our NYC trip and do something else for our anniversary. That freed up some money....(we really don't NEED it for closing on the house.. it was just me feeling like we did).  However,  a trip to NYC in July, followed by a trip to England in  September followed by a trip to Portland in October would have been a bit much right after buying a house.  LOL.

So... here I am... excited. Watching as the world plays out perfectly.  I set an intention for this year it was to THINK BIG and take bold actions.  And here I am...watching it unfold. I am going to England in September to perform in the Bristol Burlesque Festival, and I couldn't be more excited!  I feel like this is the big "YES!" I have been looking for from the universe.  I feel like I am finally being seen and recognized for my talents..and appreciated.  I may not be invited on to local stages, but I am making it onto stages in Oregon and England!!!!!!  Woohoooo!!!!!!   Dreams do come true!

Now if we can just keep me from hitting my head again before then.........

Photo Credit:  Amilie from Dommino Inc Photography

Hair and Make up:  Unique Angeline Irish

June 3, 2017 A Parental Grieving Ah-ha Moment.....

The moment I got the phone call from my daughter in law telling me that our son Nick was killed in a motorcycle accident, this entire family went into survival mode.  As parents, we went went into survival mode.

I was on the phone with my daughter in law, my mom, and the stat trooper who came to my mom's door to tell them Nick has been killed while I watched my daughter, my remaining son and my husband crumble on the floor in a huddle of wails.  When I got off of the phone, with my mom and daughter in law, we started making the necessary phone calls to tell them.  We started calling airlines to make flight plans.  We went into serious survival mode.  We needed to get through this.  By "this" I mean, get to Florida and figure out what to do with his remains, how to help my daughter in law and my mom.  I went into "Make sure Suzy is okay" mode. I completely put my own children aside during this time.  I didn't think to make sure their emotional needs were taken care of.  I figured they still had us.  They still had each other.  They would be okay.   Suzy lost her husband.  But in reality, my children needed me so much more than I could have (in my own grief) ever imagined. 

Once the immediate work was done, my husband lost himself in work, and the rest of the family was still in survival mode.  How do we survive the death of our beloved Nick?  Breath by breath, hour by hour, day by day, week by week... and now its been 3 1/2 years.  And I realized something.  We have been in survival mode for 3 1/2 years.  We have stopped parenting our living children.  I stopped giving Naomi the motherly advice a young woman needs; gratefully, I started raising her to be an adult woman at a very young age.  She has a good head on her shoulders because I gave her a good starting point before Nick was taken from us.  Nate was 21 and had HUGE dreams and was well on his way to following them when Nick was killed and his life came crashing down. 

Tracy kept his head buried in work.  I just did my best to keep my own sanity and focused on survival and forgot about parenting my children.  I lived in fear of losing my children. Naomi got sick.  I was dealing with concussions.  We had to deal with losing our daughter in law.  And now here we are, realizing that we have not parented our children in 3 1/2 years.  We have an 18 year old daughter who has her head on her shoulders (thankfully), but I have had to have some discussion with her and she looked at me like I was crazy. "Where did all that 'momming' come from?"  I saw the eye rolls.  I saw the look she gave me.   Our 25 year old son is at home with no formal education or trade working in a job he loves but only pays him $10/hr. That is not enough to live on, but we dont' see him making progress to change these things. WE ahve not set boundaries.  Partly because Tracy has been burried in work and avoiding life because of grief and partly because I am terrified of losing another child.  I have already lost my oldest son to death and his wife whom I have loved since she was 14 due to grief.  I can not bare the idea that I will lose another one of my children. I just can't. 

So yes, I have created a problem.  My problem... loving too much and not loving responsibly.

Grief doesn't come with a manual.  There is no one telling you how to go about grieving. Worse, there is no one out there telling parents who have lost a child how to parent their remaining children (if there is, no one told me about it).  Even if you can find a book on how to help your children through grief, there are no books on how to help the parents deal with the idea of possibly losing another child to either grief, death, or to the inevitable blow up that comes with the realization that you have stopped parenting and now you have to parent and that child is going to be angry when the boundaries are set and enforced. 

I don't know if any of this is making sense.  I am, after all, still recovering from yet another concussion.  But my heart is about to shatter and fall to pieces.  A couple of weeks ago, when I realized we had stopped parenting, we sat down with the kids individually and explained what was going on.  We explained we needed to set some boundaries and expectations. They are both adults.  There are things they should be doing....things that we didn't' teach them.  Things we never expected of them.  But we are now.  We love them.  We want them to be productive citizens.  We want them to be successful adults.  We are not asking alot, and by many, certainly not enough.  But, it's a start.  It scares me.  And unless you have lost a child, you will never know exactly how much this scares me.  It is so easy to sit on the sidelines with all of your children alive and judge the decisions we have made as parents.  But, I'm telling you, the fear of losing another one of my children because they hate us (like we have with our daughter in law) down right paralyzes me.  So our son did not do what we asked him to do.  Tracy got angry.  I asked Tracy not to talk to nate while he was angry, but he felt he needed to.  I knew NOTHING good would come of this. 

Yelling, cussing, screaming, doors slamming, things being thrown, consequences being followed through with... tough love being practiced.  My head is screaming.  My heart is shattered.  I am terrified.  What if Nate leaves and never talks to us again?  What if he leaves and we have no way of knowing where he is or if he is even safe?  What if I lose my remaining son?  I know he needs to grow up.  I know he needs to be responsible.  I know he needs to learn his lessons that we have neglected to teach him because we have been in survival mode.  I know we have created this. I know undoing what we have created is going to be painful.  I know all of this.  And I am terrified. I am terrified of what this will do to my entire family, not just to me.  I am terrified of how this will affect my marriage.   I am terrified of how this will affect the relationship between Nate and Naomi.  They need each other in this life.

I can only hope and pray that the result will be what we want and need..which is for our children to be responsible mature productive adults.  I can only hope that they will realize that we are acting from a place of love.    I can only pray that my family will stay in tact.

For those grieving parents out there who still have children at home that you still need to raise.  Don't do what we did.  I know its hard.  I know you want to keep your babies close to home and close to you.  I know you can't bare the thought of losing another child.  But please,.... please do not stop "momming" them.  Give them those lectures. Hold them accountable.  Ground them if need be.  Take away their phones or their internet.  Set boundaries.  They need them.  They are in survival mode too, but they are also looking to you to guide them.  Step up and do it. It's going to be hard.  But do it.  Parenting is NEVER easy, even when you have all of your children alive.  But it becomes so much harder once you lose one and you still have some at home to raise and launch out on their own.  Love the, but be strong and set those boundaries and expectations and follow through with consequences.  Dont' let your grief blind and bind you.  Don't let the grief stop you from being the best parent you can be.  Don't let grief tell you that it is okay to love and smother your children to keep them close and safe.  Keeping them home and handicapping their adulthood is not the way to show them that you love them.  Be strong.  Find a way out of you grief so that you can continue to be the best parents you can be and so that you don't find yourself sitting on the couch, like me, afraid that you will lose yet another child (not to death, but to anger and hatred).