Lately I have been really living my life. I mean full out. I think because I have a VERY dear friend who is in my same company I just have someone there at all times who I can play with and joke with and laugh with at any given moment. So I've been at my most unleashed lately. I just kind of say what I am thinking and usually a lot of people think its pretty funny. But yesterday I had a moment where it didn't pay off. I was talking with the hair supervisor about getting a haircut, and he told me that he would have loved to help me then, but he had to do an annoying double color treatment on one of the other chorus boys in the cast. This particular boy has fully bleached out platinum Brigitte Nielson hair. I mean just Abba Gold hair. It actually looked cute on him, because he has the personality to match it.. larger than life. So, pretty soon the hair guy starts talking a little trash about this guy's look, "'I mean that hair! Thats one of those moments where you're like, HONEY where was your momma to tell you NOT to do that!" I just chucked and said, "right?" on my way out the door and lo and behold that platinum hair was just staring me in the face. I froze and said to myself, OH NO. I can't believe I participated in that conversation. True, I didn't say the mean thing, but I didn't disagree with the mean thing. He was on his phone, so I wasn't positive that he had heard it. But I literally spent the entire evening feeling bad, and thinking about this poster:
Its a solemn reminder to all of us. Watch out for people passing tar your way. It could be hot, and before you know it you could have dirty fingernails. If you see some hands right next to your hands with tar in them, don't keep your hands there! Oh yeah, and there could also be feathers, which would be REALLY bad. But seriously though, knowing that what I said or didn't say really hurt someone's feelings made me so sad and so ashamed of myself. I spent the entire evening unable to shake the feeling that I had willingly hurt another person. That is SO against what I want to be that it just made me feel terrible.
The next day I walked into work wholly prepared to apologize profusely for being a part of that conversation. I was determined to make things right and take responsibility for my behavior. But he walked right up to me and started chatting with me, which told me that he had NOT heard the comment at all. I decided it would be worse at that point to apologize then to just let it go and allow it to be a lesson to me only. I guess I needed to remember that even if I'm living my life without filtering what I say, I need to remember not to participate in anything that could be hurtful to anyone if overheard. Easy? NO. Important? Vital.
"I want to be kind to everyone, for that is right, you see. So I say to myself remember this: kindness begins with me."
4 comments:
It's tough to never participate. But you got lucky that time, and learned a valuable lesson. Mormonads are really clever.
I can't seem to find your email address anywhere on your site, which is tragic, because I have a story to tell you.
I've been reading your blog for a year and a half somewhat quietly. I put it on my google reader because of your Moho roots.
Anyway, I grew up in Chicago, and I'm just going to put the gist of this story as a comment you may or may not choose to delete later because I don't know how else to tell you this story.
In August 2005 I left my home to serve a mission in Arcadia CA. I was the first to go as I am the oldest of 7 kids. Sometime in my first area which would have been mid September, I received a letter from my dad detailing this young guy who'd been at Church that he'd been inviting to Dinner and that he'd been trying to include in family things. Of course this started all kinds of missionary jokes about how I'd been replaced and that my family was going to stop missing me because of this new guy.
A short while later I got a package with pictures of Halloween preparations (my favorite holiday) that included pumpkin picking with none other than this young, dashing replacement of mine. What's more is that my dad went on and on in his letter about how this young actor had so much in common with him and how this young man's life could have been his life if he hadn't started his family so young and if he'd been willing to take more risks and blah, blah, blah.
2 years later I came home and had to face my sexuality and come out of the closet and authenticate my life and read blogs.
Anyway, fast foward to today and I am reading this post on my google reader and thinking about how you're an actor recently moved to Chicago and thinking that you've done shows there before and suddenly something clicks and I go back to my mission stuff and dig out the pictures and low and behold The Stripping Warrior is picking pumpkins with my family.
This is when I make some cliché comment about how small the world is in the Church, lol. But actually I'm quite hung up about this. Did my dad feel fatherly toward you because he sensed you were gay and was trying to figure that out in my absence because he knew I was gay? If my dad knew you were gay and had accepted that, would he gain more respect for me as a gay person knowing that he likes other gay people? What does this freak realization mean?
So, if you care to email me, that'd be great. My email is on my profile. You could let me know if you'd be ok with me sharing this discovery with my dad or not!
Thanks for the MormonAd poster. Have you seen the MormonAd poster spoofs that Divine Comedy has done? There are some really great ones...
http://www.divinecomedy.net/mormonadz/
And wow, I can't not comment on Daniel's comment. That's amazingly freaky.
Clark if you ever leave showbiz you should definitely become a columnist. This simple story that could be boring and trite is instead clever, humorous and thought provoking.
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