The Pressure To Fit In

"They laugh at me because I'm different; I laugh at them because they're all the same."

As some of you may know, Brandon and I have our biggest show ever coming up. By show, I mean about 7 minutes. But the audience consists of 5000. We are doing a quick flashy opening, an intermission spot, and a closing spot. All illusions, for a bull riding fundraiser event in Augusta, GA. Pretty awesome. Well we originally were told that our opening spot would be off in a corner of the arena so we had decided on an illusion to do. Then we were told it would actually be in the center where the other spots would be. That changes things since we have to drag out a stage into the middle of this huge dirt arena with the illusion.
Yesterday we tried to work on a new opening. A different appearance for me. Like I said. We tried. With what we had just laying around we tried many different ways to produce me out of just stuff. A random case top. A curtain tube. You guys, it was pretty pathetic. I tried everyway I could to fit into some of that stuff but it was literally impossible.

Yeah I looked like that. Not a pretty sight. But the more I thought about it I was like gosh this is how life is. We are constantly getting "shoved into boxes" that we aren't meant to fit in and we try EVERYTHING to make it work. And somehow or another, something doesn't fit. Your hips that are just slightly too big. Your knees are poking out. You can't get your head flat enough. Always something.
Sometimes we aren't meant to fit in. And we really should accept that and be proud of it. I'm definitely not one who fits in with everyone else. We need to stop trying to make ourselves fit in. It's like in the original story of Cinderella. The evil stepmother tried everything possible to get the ugly stepsisters' feet to fit into the glass slipper. Even if it meant slicing off parts of their foot. Seriously too far. Isn't that what a lot of people do today though? We want so badly to be loved and accepted as who we are so supposed to be that we will change anything and everything about ourselves to fit in.

"It takes a STRONG fish to swim against the current. Only dead fish go with the flow."

If I can tell you anything about being a magic assistant and trying to fit into tiny little places that people really shouldn't fit into, you should know is there is pressure. And sometimes it majorly hurts. But sometimes you just don't fit. And it's not worth trying to keep pushing it, or it might break. Is that really worth it, losing yourself for something unimportant?

"The problem with pounding a square peg into a round hole is not that the hammering is hard work. It's that you're destroying the peg."

No I'm not trying to preach at you. Just telling you how my life is changing. Like I said in the last blog post, this will be a better year for me but it can't just change because I want it to. I have to make the effort. I have to quit trying to make myself be something I'm not. I'm a square peg in a round hole kind of world. I'm a magic assistant that doesn't quite fit in the world's box. And I'm finally realizing that is totally okay. 

I am tiny. Only 5 foot 3 at around 110 pounds. But guess what? I still don't fit in some boxes. I need to take pride in the fact that I'm not quite like everyone else. I do fit in most boxes, but some are too small and a LOT of them are far too big for me. Even if it's a situation where the box is so big that I'm swimming in it, that still means that I don't fit. 

My life as a magic assistant is the same as life for everyone else. 

It's all about the pressure to fit in.