First Nationals Update

I haven't even had the chance to sleep in my own bed since getting back from nationals early Monday morning. I was pretty eager to start putting away all of my things, reorganizing my room, and getting on with the business of everyday living again. But each time I touched anything in this room--each time I picked up a piece of a costume or a trophy or even opened my suitcase more than a crack--I saw the things, feelings, and people connected to them, and I couldn't bring myself to do it just yet. I've had more fun in the last week than I have in years, but I have also felt more pain than I thought I was capable of enduring.

Most people know that I didn't win this year, and I knew exactly what I did to lose the very moment it happened. I can't pretend that it wasn't one of the most painful experiences I've had to deal with in my performance career. I had no one to blame but myself, and these were mistakes that just simply shouldn't have happened. I didn't think I could ever feel that broken again. I had let everyone down, again, and this time, I couldn't walk away feeling like I had done the best that I could, which would have made everything perfectly fine. I was convinced I never wanted to put myself in that position again, risk feeling like that yet another year later. In those hours immediately following the conclusion of the pageant, I had finally come to the point of believing I just had nothing left to give. The magic was gone. And I couldn't get myself out of it.

I don't know what brought me back to reality. Maybe it was hall twerking in my underwear with three of my best friends. Or eating four pounds of Chinese food the next morning. Or seeing one of the people I love and respect most in this industry win his dream bar title the day after stepping down as Mister Gay United States MI. Maybe it was seeing my drag kids place top five in their very first national pageants ever. Maybe seems to be kind of a useless word at this point in the conversation. Collectively, my experiences began to chip away at pain enveloping my every thought. Would I really want to give this up? Ultimately, I had to ask myself, "What kind of person do I want to be?" What will be my legacy? Perseverance.

Because nothing worth having is ever easy, and someday, I will look back on all this pain, and it will be invisible. I know this isn't over for me. I know I am my own worst enemy. This year, it was about celebrating my demons, not fighting them. Now I realize that it's not so hard to fight them, and it's not so hard to be proud of them, but it is infinitely more complicated when you need to discover the balance necessary to achieve success.

But, while I was sitting expressionless in the front seat of the van, unable to move from the parking garage back to the room, he reminded me that I had achieved so many victories that weekend, regardless of my placement on the final night. I gave my kids the experience of a lifetime, and though I may not have won the war, I won a few very important battles. Interview and Question and Answer. I beat something I have been fighting for years. I still don't know how to feel about losing the category that I'm "supposed to be" the best at. My head probably wasn't able to keep up at that point. Everyone keeps telling me how well I did, but there is that part of me that knows how many mistakes I made. I know that I didn't get to show them the best parts of me during talent. That will stick with me for a while, but for now, I can celebrate the win for my new brother and sister. I can look forward to a fantastic year of growing, strengthening, and promoting a pageantry system that has made me who I am today. I cannot wait to work with everyone. The energy has returned.

More later.

Something else about nationals.

"i feel like i really made an impression on people. and i learned something myself. what i got out of this was way more important than winning. in fact, winning may have even overshadowed how important this lesson was for me to learn, so maybe there is a reason for the way things turned out."

Long shot

Just when I didn't think anything else could go wrong, it did. I've been working on this shit for six months. I've spent almost all of my free time and money on it. And now that I may not be able to go, four days before the competition, I feel at such a loss. I haven't felt disappointment like this in a long time. I can remember exactly when that last time was, and I can hear their voices in my head telling me that I would never be able to do it. My reason for persevering is to prove that I can. I want to prove it to myself more than anything, but it would be nice to silence the voices in my head that have been chirping away at me for years telling me that someone like me will never be able to succeed to any great degree, especially in the entertainment industry. I know you were wrong then, and you are just as wrong now. I don't want this to be the end of this journey for me. I don't want to have worked this hard just to not even be able to show up. This is too important for me to just let go and go home, even though that would be the easy thing to do. It would be the most comfortable thing too. I wouldn't have to worry about having a meltdown or making a fool of myself. I wouldn't have to worry about having to go it alone. I wouldn't have to worry about forgetting how to talk to important people. I wouldn't have to be afraid of proving them right. I am bigger than all of the bad things that happen to me. It doesn't look good right now, but the only thing I can do is trust that the right thing will happen in the end, and I will end up where I need to be. I am not even able to cry. I can't scream. It is all just held inside of me. But it's not the same as before. It's not that getting-ready-to-explode-out-of-your-skin feeling. It's fuel burning inside of me. But I need to learn how to control the flame. I will work until the very last hour. Why would I operate under the assumption that I am going to fail? I can do this. I need to do this. And I will do this.

In Between

It's kind of ridiculous that it's all over now, and it's even more ridiculous because I don't even WANT to be sad. I just want to get over it and get on with things. I'm not mad. Maybe a little peeved about things here or there, but let's face it, Skyler had the better package tonight and was spot on. And I really am happy for him, and I'm happy for myself too because I'm still going to nationals, I still got to try out this idea (though perhaps it wasn't the best time for a test run...), and I still wound up learning a lot about myself. It's amazing how much you can learn about how you're presenting yourself to the rest of the world just by looking at the way you walk, the way you smile, etc.
And it's also incredibly frustrating.
I want to pick a place to start talking about all the things that happened tonight and the nights leading up to the pageant. I could say so much about how I didn't have enough time with working so much and how it was so difficult to get dancers, etc. But those are just excuses. And maybe I could also talk about how I should have switched my idea when I knew we would only have three days to practice a pretty complicated routine.
And perhaps it was a little TOO outside of the box. I'm not sure. But there are two things that piss me off. One of the comments on my sheet for presentation was "not good as a boy". On a similar note, there were comments in another category suggesting that I was not walking in a masculine way. Or not doing something in a masculine way. Oh, and did I mention I got knocked points for using the word queer? I guess that makes three things. Am I the only one that has an issue with the pageantry system deciding how to define masculinity? I mean, it is their pageant and they have enough crazy rules the way it is, but this just seems like something that's detrimental in general.
The whole thing's just got my head spinning tonight. And I'm just...sad. There's no way of getting around it. And it's more annoying than anything else because my brain is fully capable of moving past this and not dwelling on shit, but it refuses to. And even when I wanted to have a good cry a little earlier, I couldn't. It's almost impossible for me to cry when I need to, yet sometimes I find that tears well up in my eyes instantly depending on the trigger (usually something random and pointless).
I know what I can do well. And I know what I like to do. And tonight has me thinking that this pageant thing really isn't for me. I do get annoyed that I have to say words in a particular order and do this and that. It's a lot of jumping through hoops, and I hate feeling that winning a title like this is the only way to spread my name. I'm sure it's not true, but that's the way it seems to have been working.
Here's the problem I'm having. I'm a performer. That's clearly what I like to do, and it's what I do best. I know how to keep people entertained and push boundaries and keep coming up with new things. I'm also pretty good at designing outfits, apparently. But they don't like the way I walk. I just thought of something...
Maybe the modeling portions are so difficult for me because I honestly don't feel like I'm in character when I am doing it. I don't feel like I'm performing, and maybe if I did, I would do better. I just don't feel like I have the same confidence. There's also that part of me that keeps wondering how my walking in the shape of a T or a triangle is relevant to anything or how it can be construed as entertainment. And I know the answers to my own questions. It's not about that, not all of it. When I do stuff like this, I realize that I feel like I'm doing it for somebody else. With Mr. Cattivo, I felt like I was doing it for me. I did things how I wanted to, and I was allowed to be a lot more creative with it.
Maybe it's just learning that this isn't what I do. I can't sleep. It's almost five in the morning, and I'm already running on barely any sleep from the night before the pageant, but I can't get the thoughts out of my head. My brain always feels like it needs to resolve everything before it can move on, which is why I am so annoyed. I don't want to think about this right now. I honestly want to go upstairs, take a hot bath, read a book, come back down here and cuddle with my sleeping boyfriend.
I asked him if he thought I should keep doing this, and I could tell it was a difficult question for him to answer. There's no getting around the fact that I want to be great at what I do. I want people to know who I am. I want to perform in more places and all that jazz. And I sometimes feel like this is the only way to do it. Again, the brain knows that really isn't true, though it certainly doesn't hurt.
Maybe I'd rather spend my time, money, and energy working on something for me, and by that I mean something for the audience to really enjoy without having to worry about the minute details that usually escape them anyway. If this is how I feel, and I know this is what I do best, why am I still sad? It makes no sense to me.
I'm an entertainer. I'm more comfortable doing that than anything else. But that doesn't mean I don't want to get better at the other things, and maybe a lot of that right now is because it's a new challenge. The other things are hard for me, and ironically enough, I sucked the most on talent because I was so bent on sticking with this original idea I had in my head. I wasn't really on tonight at all, and pretty much everything that could go wrong...did. I knew what had happened as soon as I stepped off stage. But should the fact that it's a challenge matter that much if that's one of the only things keeping me in it?
It should be as easy as saying it's not for me. Kind of like basketball.
But why isn't it? Maybe I should start asking myself why I really wanted this in the first place. Did I really need the validation that badly? And did it backfire completely? Maybe. Not sure. My confidence is shot right now, but I've learned to bounce back. Maybe it's because I put so much time and energy into this, and I don't have much to show for it at the moment.
BUUUUT I still get to go to nationals. And I can change things up. I can learn how to model better, stop saying ummmm all the time, and figure out a way to make the lights work better for me instead of hurting me because you couldn't see my face. But how much more is that going to require from me, and can I even do that now knowing the way I feel.
I'm trying to think back to what I told them in the interview. They asked me how important it was for me to win the crown tonight. I told them that, although that would be nice and everyone enters with the goal of winning, it wasn't everything for me. I come out of each one better than the last, and maybe that's why I've stuck with doing it. I like pushing myself, but sometimes I can't stand not being able to do it my way. A lot of my life is based upon rules and rigid thinking and all that good stuff, and I don't want it to apply to my performance. Maybe I enjoy it so much because I can do whatever the hell I want.
It's a lot for me to think about right now, and I just want something else to go in its place. Again, I'm an annoying kind of sad that just won't leave.
I'm not going to think about drag for...I was going to say at least a week, but I have a show in two. It never stops.
I wouldn't have it any other way.

Oh, and the tuxedo that I have isn't supposed to button, fyi. lol

The whole night has me thinking. There weren't too many people there, and it really didn't seem like people were having that great of a time. Do I really want to spend all of my energy doing this when I could be putting it towards making sure people do have a good time and actually want to come back and see me?

Random good thing: I look great in white. :)

Maybe I should start saying some positive things here. And maybe I should stop saying maybe. It must be getting pretty tiring about now.
Maybe.

EsQ wants me to make a pair of pants like mine, though. I mean, that's a positive thing, right?

I want to keep writing to bleed this issue dry, but I don't think that's going to be happening any time soon, or maybe I feel like it's close enough to say that I want to start that bath water.

I'm caught exactly in between "I give up" and "bring it on".