And the award goes to….
You! And me! Congratulations to us! I would like to thank the Academy of Real Life for this prestigious award.
You know, I love watching the Oscars. I predominantly watch it for the gowns rather than the actual movies. My favourite of all time? Halle Berry’s 2002 Elie Saab masterpiece. It still makes my knees weak. My favourite this year? A tie between Sandra Bullock and Anna Kendricks. Both beautiful and elegant. But I digress…
I believe this obsession with celebrity culture has gone far enough. This near-pathological need to know the latest gossip, personal failure, and scandal of the rich and famous has gotten pretty out of hand. Pardon my cynicism but I think if you have “handlers”, you don’t have any right to have a breakdown. Now work three jobs, raise two children, and keep your sanity relatively intact, well THAT deserves an award.
For us boomers, well, we’ve been around the block a few times. Certainly enough times to have had a few challenges. Challenges that we couldn’t correct with spin or a trip to rehab. And yet, we had to keep going. I had to perform on stage just weeks after my brother died. I pulled it together. Some of us have had to raise children, keep our judgement and parenting skills intact, while being so tired we couldn’t form complete sentences. And then when a kid woke up sick, we had to dig down to find an even deeper well of strength. Some of us have had to get by on $5 for a few days before the next paycheque. Some of us have had to be there for sick parents, emotionally demanding teens, suicidal friends, and challenging jobs even though our own resources were so depleted we abstractly wondered if we had actually already expired from exhaustion and were simply moving on residual adrenalin.
And yet we did. So to all of us who are just ordinary folks, but who have done extraordinary things under crippling circumstances without aid of handlers, people, or staff, or more money than God, I would like to present this virtual award. Congratulations, we deserve it!
Now, if only I had an Elie Saab dress to go with it….