Playing Dress-up

I love to be something I'm not. 

Me at Book Club Night for
Daughter of Smoke and Bones by Laini Taylor

Now most people may think by making that statement that I have a low self-esteem or that I don't like who I am.  Not true!  Most days I love my life and sometimes I think too highly of myself.  The reason I love being someone or something else has more to do with making life interesting by experiencing something out of the ordinary. 

The first musical I ever tried out for, I got the leading female role.  Don't worry, it wasn't necessarily because I rocked the stage or even looked the part.  I was just in the right place at the right time. It was also called Little Luncheonette of Terror, basically a teeny bopper remake of Little Shop of Horrors. The sub-par script was overshadowed by the catchy music.  My favorite part: I got to pretend to be someone else.  That someone else also got there first kiss on stage, a traumatic slobbery surprise! Shame on him.

I've only been in seven or eight musicals since then.  Each one of them, I played someone new, and each time I've loved it.  I've been a ballerina, ghost, singing tree, one of the ten virgins, diva, angel, and fairy.

Besides acting the part, the best part, hands down, is dressing up.  Putting on a costume is like stepping into someone else's life.  Want to feel like a princess?  Dress like one.  Wondering if you'd make a good Scarlett O'hara?  Be her! Wish you'd grown up on a farm?  Throw on those chaps and cowboy boots.  Yee Haw!

I dress up for everything.  Halloween starts months before October 31 so I can get a head start of my costume.  I know some of the members of my Delicious Reads Book Club cringe at the thought of sometimes dressing like characters in our books.  Not me! I get all giddy and then my mind starts turning the gears on what to wear.  I run the Provo Halloween Half Marathon every year now. Not so much because I want to stay fit or prove a point.  I just want to dress up and enjoy seeing others do the same.

Me as Velma with The Scooby Gang

Me as Padme and the Star Wars Crew

Pink Lady at the Provo Halloween Half Marathon

Woman in White Book Club

I always wanted to be Harry Potter!

In Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card wrote, “Perhaps it's impossible to wear an identity without becoming what you pretend to be.”  To a certain extent that is true.  If I play a role, I own it and the result is: part of that character becomes part of me.  The same is true with writing.  Each character I add to what I'm writing takes on a part of who I am.  There are also times when I write a character and I find that I adopt some of their characteristics.

Will dress-up ever get old?  Strangely, I think it would feel like I wasn't being me.  Trying on different characters is how I discover parts of who I am.  In a life where many things can seem mundane and ordinary, why not try on something that makes you feel extraordinary.