“Live your life as an exclamation, not an explanation…… ! “

~Life’s Little Instructions

My friend Tracy Lahr Glassey posted this quote on her Facebook page this morning and it got me to pondering how often throughout my life I felt a need to explain my reasons for feeling, thinking and acting in certain ways. As a recovering co-dependent (my favorite definition of the concept is not knowing where I begin and you end.), I have danced with the idea that I really could be ok even if I didn’t have the approval of people in life. Sometimes the idea stepped on my toes and sometimes we waltzed gracefully together. I much prefer grace to hobnail boots stomping on my tootsies. With the desire to be ‘loved best of all’, I would become a chameleon to blend in, to have a sense of belonging and to refrain from making waves or rocking the boat. Think “Guys and Dolls” and the piece “Sit Down, You’re Rocking the Boat”  combined with my former theme song straight from A Chorus Line; “What I Did For Love” and you get the picture…not always a pretty one.

These days, in the 5th decade of my life, I am relieved to recognize that as much as I still desire love and acceptance (is there any human being who doesn’t at their core, want that?), I know in my heart of hearts, that I am not now and never have been, incomplete without it. If someone truly would benefit from knowing what is behind my decisions in any area of my life, I am happy to share it, but I rarely these days, feel a need to justify, as if another person is the arbiter of my choices. As an exclamation, I do live full out, ripe and juicy. I dance my own steps and turns…no wonder I enjoy improvisational dance over ballroom. Less structure, more freedom to let the music move me.  Those who know me, would say that I am vividly colorful, passionately purposeful, overflowing with energy, a no holds barred gutsy broad.  Willing to be, as my father called me ‘a goofy kid’ at times. The facade has dropped and I live in vulnerability and audaciousness, an ecstatic exclamation!

What would it mean to you, if you were to live as an exclamation?

http://youtu.be/xjCTJXbgskc What I Did For Love, sung by Idina Menzel