Chapter 153: Push

My Mom has often talked about how sometimes she will wake up with a song in her head and that song will kind of stick with her throughout the day. I have always really liked the fact that my Mom is really into music and always has a song in her head, just like I do. It makes me very proud because I know she was like me in a lot of ways when she was younger but I think somewhere over the years she kind of lost her love for music or forgot about it and I think my love of music has really helped to remind her of hers. That is a very powerful thing, as far as I am concerned. Music is one of the most beautiful, emotional, powerful forms of art in this world and I think it is important for everybody to have an appreciation and love for it. I honestly feel really sad and personally offended when people say things like, “I’m not really into music.” Music is the absolute biggest part of who I am as a person and I can’t even begin to imagine what life would be like as one of those people who just isn’t really into it. It doesn’t make sense to me at all. I find it peculiar that I never really have that experience that my Mom has so often of waking up with a song in her head. I’ll be reminded of a song early in the morning or think of something that reminds me of a song, but it’s never really been the case that a song is stuck in my head when I wake up. Perhaps this is because I am not a very active dreamer, in terms of the dreams one has while they sleep. I am an extremely active dreamer in the waking dreams sense, as I’m sure anybody who knows me can tell. This morning I did have one of those experiences where I am reminded of a song as soon as I wake up, though. I woke up at 7:30am and did all the usual morning stuff. I also checked Cherry Culture pretty immediately to see if there were any updates on my makeup order. It was still in City Of Industry, CA, according to the FedEx tracking site. I have been assuming that it just somehow didn’t managed to get scanned at it’s time of departure from there and thus wasn’t getting updated in the system. It still said that it was on schedule to arrive on Thursday, April 8, 2010 and I am still keeping my fingers crossed for that to be accurate.

My Mom and I had discussed going walking this morning as our workout but I was feeling extra tired when I woke up and wasn’t really in the mood to get dressed to go out walking, then come back and change to go to work. I asked my Mom if she wanted to just do “Walk-A-Dobics” instead but I got caught up smoking and being online that it wound up getting a little late. My Mom told me she didn’t want to push me to do anything I didn’t feel like doing and that she would go to the gym at the apartment complex and do a few miles on the stationary bike there instead. I decided to use that time to get in a little more practice on the piece I was supposed to play at my piano lesson tonight. This was a very good thing, too, because without using the Metronome Online or anything, I managed to get my timing down perfectly with this practice. I was so ecstatic and happy that I had pushed myself enough to get it right. It was well worth missing a day’s workout, I think. Between what my Mom had said to me and my really pushing myself on the piano, I was reminded of a song - “Push” by Madonna. Madonna has said that she wrote this song about Guy Ritchie, which makes me a little sad to think. The chorus says, “Every race I win, Every mood I’m in, Everything I do, I owe it all to you, Every move I make, Every step I take, Everything I love, it’s all because you push me.” It’s essentially a song about having somebody in your life that pushes you to be better than you already are. It makes me sad to think that Madonna doesn’t have that person anymore. At the same time, though, I think Madonna is a strong enough woman to not need anybody else to push her – she can push herself just fine. I can relate to that. I don’t necessarily need anybody else to push me, either, because I do constantly push myself to be better. Fortunately, though, I do have people in my life who do push me, as well. My Mom is a great example of that in my life. Not only does she push me with the workout but she pushes me to be a less judgmental person. I am not an overly judgmental person, in general, but I do tend to hear things that her boyfriend does or says to her and immediately have the reaction of “Well, you need to break up with him right now!” I have that issue with a lot of people in my life when they tell me things about the things that people in their life say and do to them. I need to take more time to try to be more understanding about why people act the way they do and not make snap judgments about things that people may say when venting or in the heat of the moment. That is one way that my Mom pushes me a lot.

Another person who pushes me a lot is my sister, Amber. She is always trying to make me do better at my job. She has pushed me throughout all of my adult life but now in our current work situation, it really kind of goes to another level. One way that she has decided to push me recently is by letting me in on the fact that, on paper, I am not one of the better employees on our account. On paper means statistic-wise – this means Quality Control scores, attendance, performance issues, etc. I am not the worst, as far as this goes, either, but I am not in the top percentage. She told me this in passing, basically, but it really lit a spark underneath me. My QC scores have improved immensely in the past few months, which is a definite plus, so now I am focusing on attendance. I haven’t done well at all this year, as far as that goes. I’ve been sick a few times this year and missed a few days of work because of it. This month, however, I am feeling fine and don’t foresee any issues ahead, so I am shooting for perfect attendance this month. Perfect attendance doesn’t really mean much, in all honesty, but it DOES look good on paper. That should take me up a few notches on paper, I would think. I’m not overly concerned about the security of my job or anything at this point but I do want to be, at the very least, among the best. Work was pretty boring today, overall. I did do a lap around the parking lot with my Mom on my first break, so I did get a little bit of a workout today. We did that yesterday, as well, and I really like it. My only issue is that, now that it is warmer outside, I work up a bit of a sweat being out walking in the sun and feel paranoid and like I look all shiny when I go back to work. It’s worth it, though. I feel really good getting that little extra bit of exercise during the day.

After work, Amber picked me up to take me to my piano lesson. She was also waiting to pick up her girlfriend, as well, and there was a bit of drama surrounding that. My sister was really quiet for the whole drive there and said that she had pissed her girlfriend off. I don’t know the details surrounding the situation but I couldn’t help but feel kind of responsible. I apologized to Amber for being an inconvenience and she said it was fine and they’d figure it out fine but I still felt bad. When I arrived at my lesson, a few minutes late, Viktor was sitting in the lobby with the adorable little girl who has lessons before me, as well as a really cute, really young-looking teenaged boy who smiled at me really big. Viktor told me to go ahead into his room and he’d be in momentarily. I sat down at the piano and set up the sheet music book and my notebook and waited for him. I was really excited about tonight’s lesson because I felt really confident about the progress I had made this morning with my timing and was ready to show it off. Unfortunately, the very first thing Viktor pointed out to me when I started playing the piece was the fact that I had marked the notes wrong and was playing the entire thing a step higher than I was supposed to. So, I was pretty much immediately knocked off of the pedestal I had put myself on. If there is anything I can say about Viktor in the 5 weeks that I have been taking lessons with him, it is definitely that he pushes me. I am constantly striving to impress him in any way that I can. I think that may be a part of the problem I am having with the piano, actually. Like I am trying to push myself too hard because I really want to impress him with my skills. The issue is that I don’t actually have any piano skills at this point. That is the whole reason that I am taking these lessons. He is supposed to be teaching me these skills. It is silly of me to be trying to impress him with things I don’t know well enough yet because he hasn’t taught them to me. It is really silly of me and I need to get that under control. I just feel like he has been so good with me in the past 5 weeks and I am really desperate to prove to him and, even more, to myself that I am making progress. He made a comment tonight, though, that really made me think a lot about this whole thing. He said that typically the people who start off slower are the ones who see quicker results. I need to calm myself down about the whole thing. He also said that I needed to make sure to practice daily. I don’t have to be at the piano for hours at a time or anything. He said that just 15-20 minutes a day should be plenty to start seeing results, so I am going to start doing this much more frequently than I have been the past couple weeks. I am going to continue to push myself but in a much slower, more realistic way. I am still pretty confident about the piano.

After my lesson I finally spoke with my friend, Whitney. We talked for about 30 minutes and were able to do a good bit of catching up, as well as clearing up the issues we’ve had recently. It was a really good talk. We both decided that we should start making time to talk to each other more frequently. I am really glad that we finally got the chance to talk – it really eased my mind a LOT, made me feel much better about the world and just meant a lot to me. We talked until my Mom arrived to pick me up. My Mom and I ran by her bank, then picked up dinner from Chipotle and came home to watch “American Idol.” It was a pretty relaxed evening to cap off a pretty good day. I also decided to check Cherry Culture one more time for any updates on my order. I wasn’t expecting much, based on all of my previous checks, but FINALLY it had updated and said that my shipment arrived in Orlando at 8:10pm this evening. This means that, most likely, it should be here tomorrow and it was, as the website kept stating, on schedule. I really cannot wait to get it and open it up. It is likely that I will find it at my doorstep when I get home from work tomorrow. My Mom and I already decided that we would have a leftover night tomorrow, which means I won’t have to cook when I come home and will be able to just rip that box open and start experimenting with all of my new makeup products! I am so anxious for it already! I am going to have so much fun with it this weekend. I drew a new makeup design that I would like to try to create this weekend, inspired by the song “Birthday” by Leighton Meester. It is a really fun, spunky, over the top look consisting of blue, gold, silver and pink that I think will look pretty amazing if I can figure out how to take what I did on paper and make it work on my face. Should be a lot of fun. I am so ready for the weekend to be here. This week has been hard to push through, honestly. Fortunately, my vacation request was approved and next week I will only be working four days and getting paid for five! I really can’t wait for that. I’m not sure what I am going to do with that three-day weekend but whatever it is, I will make sure that it is fabulous! I’m really excited for that. Of course, before that I have to get through this week. First step in doing that: Going to bed right now. Goodnight!