On Grey Gardens and stuff and stuff...

With Christine Ebersole taking her vacation next week and the numerous people who have reported seeing Dale Soules filling in for Mary Louise Wilson, I somehow find myself jealous that I can't see anyone else in the roles. I feel as though this is a milestone in my life. I've realized that this is a sort of reflection of the personal growth I've had in the past year. While I've always been a fan of numerous people, I've been of the mindset that a specific show or song or anything didn't matter if the star I love was gone. Now, I want to see everything. I want to see it from all aspects because I want to see other peoples' takes on something.
Since last July, I've been sort of growing in to this power I've had all along, but wasted on petty arguments like the MacEddy group vs. the people who don't believe Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy had an affair. I read everything on that topic that I could get my hands on so that I could make an informed decision, so that I could teach other people about the entire situation with only a slight bias toward the opinion I made. (Now, if I'm having a friend to friend conversation, the bias is VERY clear. When it's new people, it's another story.) I've come to the realization that I am one of a very few people who has the ability to understand where people are coming from on both sides of an argument and stay completely rational. I would never make a decent critic of anything because I find good, or in some cases, sense, in almost everything. The drawback is that it takes me a little longer to make a clear cut opinion on anything, but it's very lovely to know that I am no longer that stub nosed, hard headed person. I won't hide from anything anymore. I won't push it away because it's not what I have been trained to believe in.
On being a fan, someone once said that the truest ones are those who read everything they can, see everything they can, and not leave any stone unturned. I think that can be applied to the bigger picture of life, too. If you want to know about something, don't blindly trust anyone. Look at every aspect, and then use your powers of reason to make your own opinion.

Don't be afraid of having to occasionally reevaluate yourself. More importantly, don't be ashamed of who you were. People may judge you based on your past, but if you know in your heart that you are a better person today, that you have learned from your mistakes, the slings and arrows can't hurt you.