While I was running at the gym a few weeks ago I was watching a movie. It was “The Holiday.” My parents gave me the movie for Christmas a couple of years ago and I think I may have watched it once, but not all the way through. While I was watching it at the gym, I really focused in on the movie and what one of the actors — Arthur Abbott — had to say during one of his scenes.
He was telling one of the British girls who had fled off to America to get away from a scenario with an ex something that resonated with her and somehow is still resonating with me weeks later and will continue to sit on my heart.
He said ‘in every movie there is a leading lady and a best friend. You are acting like the best friend and I don’t know why because you are a leading lady. Every woman should be the leading lady of her own life.’
Wow. What do you say to that? I have realized lately that there are things in my life that need improving. There are things that I can tweak (Yes, mom it needs tweaking, t-w-e-a-k-i-n-g.)
How often do we really think about who we are? Not, necessarily who we are as in “Hi, I’m Katie Yantis,” or where we are in our life, but who we are at the core of our being?
In the last few weeks, I have had some tough conversations with close friends and with myself. I realized that there are a lot of things about myself that are in need of some improvement. I’ve realized that while I should still learn from them, the mistakes that I have made in the past and the things that have happened to me in the past need to be forgotten. I need to leave them behind. Everyone always says the past is the past for a reason. Don’t let it be part of your future.
As I go through my daily routine, I wonder how true that really is for me? How much have I really let go of my past so that it’s not part of my future, so that history doesn’t repeat itself?
In realizing all of this, I have starting grasping on to a better realization of who I am. I am a complex human being, but we all are. I am a small town girl with high emotions. I love unconditionally with out reason and only with hope and that makes me who I am and no matter what happens in my surroundings or along my path — nothing is going to change that.
I am someone who likes to lace up my hiking boots and head out on the trails, but also strap on my high heels and string on my pearls for a night out on the town.
I like listening to Frank Sinatra, Michael Buble and Adele, but I can shake it like a country girl with Luke Bryan and Josh Thompson and even rock out with Aerosmith, Styx and The Rolling Stones.
I have realized there are times when I am more emotional than I need to be, but in the end I learn from it. There are times when I talk before I think, but people always know how I feel and sometimes I focus too much on the small stuff and don’t just enjoy life. But I’m working on that and even though we all say it, I’m going to focus on that fact that no matter what, life is too short to nit-pick and we need to just enjoy life and go skydiving.
I’ve realized that no matter what happens, I am who I am. I don’t require a lot of things, just simply to be loved as I love and to enjoy what life has to bring. I’ve realized that no matter where life takes me, when I continue to be that person, that is here to enjoy life, the people who enjoy and love that person will be by my side and won’t leave for a short period or for that matter any period of time.
So ladies, I encourage you — be the leading lady of your life and along the way you will start gaining a new appreciation for yourself and the self you will discover. You’ll find you are stronger than you ever thought and along the way you will gain people in your life who are the people you want to hold on to. Let the past go, love without end and be your own leading lady — you’re worth it.
Katie Yantis appears in the Troy Daily News every Wednesday.
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