It’s Not Easy Being Green

- Kermit the Frog

Sometimes it’s hard to be me. Every time I think how hard life can be, I remember that line, “it’s hard to be me” and it makes me laugh at myself and get over any smaller issues at hand. Why do I laugh, you might ask?

Years ago, I purchased a Cyndi Lauper DVD of a live concert performance. She tells a hilarious story about Anna Nicole Smith. Lauper was up late at night, couldn’t sleep, instead she was watching court tv. At the time, the Anna Nicole Smith trial was all the talk and they had live coverage. She goes on to say that after the day’s trial, Smith comes out of the courtroom to tons of reporters awaiting a statement. The first reporter asks her how she was holding up. Her reply, “It’s hard to be me”. Because of the absurdity of the statement from a multi-millionaire, Lauper was inspired to write a song called “It’s Hard to Be Me” and the rest is history. She also refers to the song as the “loud song” because her small son likes to sing the song really, really loudly especially all the “me’s” in the song. (I like this too by the way.)

So, my back went out a couple of weeks ago. I’ve been to the doctor and he says it’s a repetitive stress injury, most likely from all the work I do on the computer. Easy enough to fix though, he said I just need to get up once every hour and walk around or something. Which, for a belly dancer, is perfect. I can rehearse for about 15 minutes every hour. The disappointing part comes next. I can’t dance right now, not until my back has healed. As a dancer, you probably understand the devastating condition of not being able to dance for different reasons and the feeling of being crushed until you can return to dancing. I am crushed. I can dance a tiny little bit on occasion but I really have to be careful. In addition to the lovely fact that I cannot dance right now, I am currently crammed into my small office with three big dogs all day while the contractor remodels our kitchen. All of the rooms have been taken over by boxes of dishes, silverware, glasses, the refrigerator, dishwasher… well, you get the idea. This all means that I can’t even get up and walk around every hour like I am supposed to. So, I’ve got to just laugh and say “It’s hard to be me”.

The cure for all that ails me this week? I will be heading off to our local showcase this evening at the new Casa Blanca Restaurant in Lancaster to be with friends and dancers.

What is discouraging you this week? And what will be your cure for the blues?