Barrymore Wine
A Little Reinvention is Good for the Soul
In honor of the Golden Globes I decided to pick a wine that was created by previous Golden Globe winner Drew Barrymore. This Pinot Grigio embodies the very essence of the vintner —cool, crisp and refreshing. Yes, every once in a while this merlot loving mom will take a walk on the wild side and try something a little lighter. Plus I consider myself and Drew to be quite similar. Both of us have little ones running around. Just because mine are on four legs doesn’t lessen the fact that they need to be constantly watched, often wake me at night, and are too young to be left alone. We both are beauty junkies, we both took a few walks on the wild side (glad there wasn’t social media back then) and we both are constantly reinventing ourselves.
Necessity may be the mother of invention, but real life and the is the mother of reinvention. I’m not talking about the type of reinvention done for shock value like Madonna tends to do, but reinvention that is the result of life’s circumstances.
Drew Barrymore has lived her life in the spotlight. A child of a legendary theater family, she has had the pressure and problems that come with that. She made good decisions and bad decisions, but was always striving to be better. As she matured, her reinvention stemmed from her pursuing things that made her happy and surrounding herself with positive people along the way.
While most of us haven’t lived our life in the spotlight, we all have felt the pressure of either living up to the expectations of our families or trying to overcompensate for their short comings. Thankfully our bad decisions weren’t out there for the world to see or weren’t posted on social media for everyone to judge, but in some way, those decisions help chart our course in life. Every road you’ve gone down up to this point has been mapped by heading away from a bad decision or heading toward something good.
And nothing helps you reinvent yourself like a global pandemic. I’m going to start a new slogan “Reinventing since 2020” (if someone takes that and makes a million dollars, please send me my share). 2020 has been quite the year. Everyone and every organization has had to change their way of thinking in order to survive which is a good thing. The takeaway from 2020 is that you never know what is going to happen in life so the one thing you should always do is follow your bliss ( I’m sure Oprah has been telling us that for years). Sometimes it takes a curve ball for you to change course. Remember Dorothy? Pretty sure if Dorothy hadn’t hit her head during that cyclone she wouldn’t have learned appreciated her dilapidated surroundings.
Drew Barrymore was crazy enough to start a talk show in the middle of a pandemic, with no audience and guests via zoom. Her creativity led to a fun show that has been a bright spot in the often predictable landscape of daytime TV. Like Drew I decided to reinvent the direction of my life. I turned negative circumstances into something positive. I have got rid of the negative voices which lifted a huge weight off my shoulders (about 180 pounds of weight— wink wink) and I am only surrounding myself with those people and things that make me happy. I want to be able raise my glass at the end of the day and know that my time was spent doing what I liked to do and talking to the people I enjoy.
I’d like to think that each reinvention brings us closer to the person we were meant to be. So do something crazy today! Start that novel, clean your bathroom (if it brings you joy) or drink a Pinot Grigio instead of Merlot. You just might discover it leads to your best reinvention yet.
Until next time….Salute