It’s Never Too Late

Photo: CorindaBravo

Welcome! Do you like the new digs? In case you haven’t figured it out, the changes around here are all about, well, changes.

I love the timing of this website launch because it is following the Oscar awards in which two favorites from my youth won Academy Awards for their legitimate acting chops. The cool part is that when I was younger, these men were heartthrobs and not too much else. One of them barely spoke. He just walked around having mastered the art of brooding and the self-conscious hair flip. The other one, seemingly no matter what else he did, was best known for spending a good deal of his screen time in an altered state.

Off screen, both of these guys earned reputations for everything but serious acting. One played the bongos, often naked. The other played in a band, that while critically acclaimed, didn’t have huge commercial success. Let’s be clear, neither of these men was ever down and out, but they certainly weren’t at the top of people’s lists for Oscar winners.

Could  all that have stopped them? Could they have decided ten years ago that they were whatever it is they were ten years ago and chosen different paths? Of course. But they didn’t. They lived their lives day to day and in one moment made a decision that would lead them to Sunday night’s award wins. They reinvented, over and over and over again. Mr. McConaughey went from naked bongo player who gets high on screen to a man who personally glows over the luck he has found in marrying his wife, speaks about God in acceptance speeches and gushes over being a dad. Who would have thought? Some are calling it a McConaissance. Some might call it a second act. He calls it the result of making a decision and “sticking to the process”  I call it reinvention, and it’s been happening all along.

My favorite part of Matthew McConaughey’s speech Sunday night was his nod to Dazed and Confused. He had just won entertainment’s most prestigious award for a dramatic role and he ends his eloquent speech with a wink and nod to where it all began.

That’s what I love most, a reinvention that never discounts the beginning, because every part of the journey is a stepping stone without which there would be no path to now. If Matthew McConaughey wasn’t first David Wooderson, he may never have been Ron Woodroof. If Jared Leto couldn’t live with forever being Jordan Catalano to some of us, then he wouldn’t be able to enjoy where Jordan eventually led him.

Reinvention isn’t all about leaving parts of yourself behind. Reinvention is about building your future on the lessons of the past and loving yourself through every iteration of you. That’s what we’re all about here at Reinvention Girl: the steps along the journey and loving yourself through it all.

Our journey’s been a long and winding one, full of surprises, missteps and falls, and it is far from over.  I wouldn’t change a thing, because where we are is pretty great and the future looks brighter still. As Matthew says, no matter what, we’re Alright, Alright, Alright.