Celebrating the Life of Two Inspiring Legends
Growing up in Northeast Ohio, I never felt like I belonged there. I was different than everybody else I knew.
In the 80s, I was an artsy, creative girl with above-average intellect who stuck out like a sore thumb in a place known for its conservative values and Norman Rockwell meets Maybury realness. I was never going to be Barney Fife's girlfriend or Opie's kid sister. I certainly wasn't interested in being a picture-perfect Stepford wife permanently stuck in the 1950s.
Don't get me wrong - I love my Midwest honesty, values, and my immigrant grandparents’ work ethic, drive, and hustle that was instilled in me at an early age.
Yet, I knew small-town USA wasn't the place for me early on. I had way too much ambition, a love of travel/adventure, and actively sought out multicultural experiences, which are impossible to find in the heartland. Since I was a big city girl in training, I yearned to explore and expand my horizons. As a teenager evolving at warp speed, I felt trapped and seriously stifled in a place that rarely changes.
Being creative with intelligence and ambition made me a different kind of outcast.
Drowning in the surreal cookie-cutter experience of Podunk Nowhere USA, it felt like I was living in a fishbowl that was a cross between the Truman Show soundstage and the suburban neighborhood featured in Edward Scissorhands. Others like me who didn't fit the mold were hard to find in one-horse town. With no outlet to express myself when coming into my own, I felt immense peer pressure to be like everyone else while trying to balance my growing need to be true to myself as an individual.
What's worse is that I didn’t look strange, unusual, or like someone who would qualify to be a member of MENSA. Sandwiched in between the metalhead burnouts and 80s fluff chick, cheerleader Barbies, I felt a whole lot of teenage angst as an intellectual creative stuck in social Siberia. Unable to put me in a clearly defined box, I was underestimated and overlooked by my peers who could not quite comprehend my accepting approach to embracing people different than me.
Unlike most heartland girls my age, I didn't go to college to find a husband.
Although it wasn't the norm yet for women in the late 80s/early 90s in my rural, whistle-stop town, I wanted to create, innovate, and lead companies and projects, so I went to college to become an entrepreneur. Women have evolved into the role we have today. Now, it is commonplace for women to lead households and/or companies, own businesses, serve as government officials, and even heads of countries, simultaneously.
Being a lifelong feminist has cost me friends, jobs, and romantic partners who were intimidated by a strong woman. I am not everyone's cup of tea, but I am someone's rare, vintage varietal. Something to be savored and sipped with healthy respect for its unique flavor, not swilled and gulped down like common, everyday brew.
At 54, I am more than okay with being the "unconventional conventionalist" and the feminist. I fought hard to be the woman I am today. Super comfortable in my own skin now, I am never going to let someone's draconian beliefs and politics set me back.
A significant part of the reason is because of two people who transitioned recently - Dolly Parton & Tim Curry.
As larger-than-life people, they were always authentic, true to themselves no matter what. As a small-town girl growing up in the 80's, I needed these two as role models. Somehow they made me feel like my brand of individualism wasn't just acceptable but exceptional.
Being the unconventional conventionalist and non-conformist in a sea of small-minded, judgmental people, I never missed the chance to watch the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Amongst the multitude of sameness, it was the one place I could find my tribe of people. Somewhere in between throwing toast and dressing up like Magenta, I learned radical self-acceptance and formulated my progressive values and humanist viewpoint that holds social justice and individualism as sacred core tenets.
Working way more than 9 to 5, Dolly taught me that being an unapologetically kind but tough businesswoman, trailblazer, and feminist in a time when women were coming into their own and heading into corporate careers. She was a down-to-earth woman who was unabashedly unafraid to live life to the fullest. If she dreamed it, she did it. She did not care what other people thought of her. As a woman of faith, she constantly gave back to her community and others by donating the funds and resources for various philanthropic causes, from books to vaccines.
Going into the uncharted territory in the next chapter of my life with book release, podcast, etc. is exciting. Fate does love the fearless. I am so incredibly grateful to people like Dolly & Tim for lighting the way for a quaint small-town girl with oversized ambition and big city dreams.
