The One With Not Fitting In and Taking a Leap

This month, I'm participating in the Slice of Life challenge with Two Writing Teachers. If you want to participate, you can link up at their Slice of Life Story Post or you can head on over there to check out other people's stories and follow along with the fun. For more information on what a Slice of Life is about, you can go here. 

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I've been trying to win tickets for Hamilton in Chicago through the Hamilton lottery app since this time last year. I haven't won yet but I know a few people who have so I keep trying. 

Today, after I entered the lottery and played the trivia, I scrolled through some of the Hamilton news and found this clip of Oprah interviewing Lin-Manuel Miranda.

In talking about how he grew up in New York but spent summers in Puerto Rico, he said: "Feeling a little out of place there, a little out of place at home, a little out of place at home...that's a great way to make a writer."

He cries talking about Puerto Rico and it brought tears to me eyes as it reminded me of growing up in the United States but feeling so connected to Guatemala even though I never got to visit until I was 36. 

Then I watched this next clip where he talks about writing Hamilton and how he used other musicals as mentor texts and even his favorite rappers as mentor texts as he worked on the songs and wanting to do justice to Alexander Hamilton. 

I love this musical and how it brings Alexander Hamilton to life but that it also connects us now to him then through music. He talks about wanting to do Alexander Hamilton justice but also how he spent so much time thinking about his lyrics and getting as many rhymes into the song as possible so the music was dense like Jay-Z. 

It reminds me of my post about self doubt but in a different way. Mixed in with self-doubt is this idea of wanting to do my best and wanting my best to be as good as some of the spoken word poets I've watched. I'm inspired by them, so in awe of them, sure that if they can do it, I can do it to. 

Right before diving in and writing, there's this little inkling of not being sure if I can paired with a bigger desire to want to so badly be able to. This happens to me every time right before I start. It's part anticipation and part expectation and part fear, fear that I'll fail and fear that I'll succeed.  

I'm glad I discovered this interview with Lin-Manuel Miranda because it reminded me that other people feel what I feel. Sometimes reminders to keep going like this are helpful...I think I'll go write now.