Want Some Advice? Don't Answer Cause You're Gonna Get it Anyway

Maybe it's Autumn kicking in or something, but I've been feeling VERY nostalgic.
And in my early youth, next to Solid Gold, the A-Team, and Punky Brewster, my favorite TV
show was: Fame!

(Enter Netflix-on-my-Wii, stage left)

So, guess what's been on my sweet television screen lately?  You guessed it!
All the silly talented-beyond-1980's-norm high schoolers dancing and singing their hearts out...
not to mention all the gratuitous concert lunch hours and musical montages!   
(That's right Glee and High School Musical, Fame is your roots, my babies!) 
Wanna know why I was into leg-warmers & leo's so much?  Yes, Fame!   
(My brief infatuation with gold lame, however, was solely brought on by Solid Gold, just sayin'.) 
Awww...to be that innocent again, with the easy-peasey worries of 1982-87.

The other day I found some priceless wisdom, while re-watching the very first episode of
the first season.  At 27 minutes in, Julie Miller's in the kitchen as she's rationalizing a "defensive wardrobe"
to her mother, and WHY she must abandon her preppy wardrobe that her mother & father would
normally approve of  (suddenly makes me yearn for Gloria Vanderbilt jeans and a striped sweater for some reason).
Her mom says this:

"Want some advice?  Don't answer cause you're gonna get it anyway.  

...Life is not an either-or... 

I used to think, 'Either I make my marriage work or my life is ruined.'  
It's not true.   
We both used to think, 'Either Julie gets an academic education or a musical one.'  
That's not true either.  
And the school you're going to proves it."

Profound, no?

How many times do we pigeon-hole ourselves into thinking every scenario is an either-or,
a make-or break?  That train of thought is limiting.  It's downright mentally, socially, & emotionally debilitating.  We've got to let it go.

Because we have the gift of the Atonement at the ready, we don't have to only look at life through
'either-or' glasses.  Sure things can be off in life, but that doesn't = the end of things.  We've got to
keep trying, keep moving forward, keep being who God intended we be...and getting there is
a process, not a pass-fail.

Life is not an 'either-or.'  
What a mantra to live by.

Makes me want to skip down the street....makes me want to truly be who I am inside.  Ha!
Gosh I love the a-ha moments....ya know when the emotional music starts to build?  Whether in
an old TV sitcom or the moments (sans music) in my own life where planets have collided, the debris
has finally settled...and there is clarity of an epiphany.

"Baby look at me
And tell me what you see
You ain't seen the best of me yet
Give me time I'll make you forget the rest

I got more in me
And you can set it free
I can catch the moon in my hands
Don't you know who I am...

...Baby, remember my name."

(-Fame by Irene Cara)