Wayne’s out of town on assignment again so last night after volleyball I had complete control of the TV. We both watch Glee but we’re two weeks behind on episodes due to our cruise. (Well, maybe only I am. Wayne sometimes catches up before work in the mornings when I’m still in bed.)

Anyway, I watched the episode where Bieber Fever took hold of the Gleeks. And where Sue got so depressed and joined Glee Club for a while.

At one point Will takes her somewhere to try and snap her out of her funk. It turns out to be a pediatric cancer ward where he sings to the kids once a month.

Kids with cancer get me tearing up something fierce these days. After my experiences with cancer, it breaks my heart seeing children having to endure treatments that can bring adults to their breaking points. It’s just not right!

Anyway, so I was already emotionally vulnerable as the scene started unfolding, but as they got ready to sing and I wondered which song they’d go with, I turned into a blubbering mess as they started singing “This little light of mine.”

That was the song I’d sing to myself to get me through, especially on the hardest or scariest of days. It just sort of came to me the first day I was home from the hospital standing naked and scared in the shower wondering about my future. All I knew was I wanted to live. I wasn’t ready to check out. I was determined to beat this thing and find an inner strength to make it through no matter what.

Suddenly, from somewhere buried inside, I started croaking out “This little light of mine.” It was a song I hadn’t sung since I was probably a child. I don’t even know how I thought of it, but there it was, just coming out on its own.

It was just a whisper at first, but you know what? It felt good to sing it. The lyrics were powerful. They filled me with strength and courage.

So I started singing it louder. I started envisioning a light glowing brighter and brighter in my belly and radiating outward. Then I started feeling empowered. And hopeful. I felt like my little glowing light was going to shine so bright on that cancer that it couldn’t help but melt away! I was going to be positively beaming with health, dagnabbit, because my little light was not ready to flicker out. I had a lot of shining left to do, and cancer wasn’t going to steal that from me!

I sang that song a lot. Sometimes in the shower as loud as I could. Sometimes in my head when I got scared at doctor visits. Sometimes in bed at night when worry wanted to rob me of sleep.

Kind of weird. Another theme in that Glee epsiode was anthems. If ever oh ever there was a cancer anthem, “This little light of mine” is it.

I was drawn to Mad Men right from the beginning. I like a lot of things about the show: the characters, the acting, how it takes you back in time and shows you a glimpse of life from a time gone by, and even the ad aspect.

Marketing and advertising have always fascinated me. In fact, I went to college in hopes of becoming an ad woman!

I elected to be a marketing major, but come sophomore year it was pretty obvious changing my major was going to be in order if I wanted to graduate. I couldn’t pass accounting or economics to save my soul, and I needed those to be admitted into U of A’s Business School’s marketing program.

Instead I went with Communications. Similar lines, but no accounting or economics.

But that’s a story for another day. (Or is it? I guess I already told it.)

Back to the appeal of Mad Men…

Last night when I climbed into bed I started flipping channels. That’s when the Joy Behar Show on HLN caught my eye.

There was a caption on the bottom of the screen as the ladies were talking that said something about one of the actresses on Mad Men being a size 12. Then it said how the director prefers the women on the show to look “natural.”

As opposed to the concentration camp thin look most of the other actresses on 99% of the other TV shows go for?

THAT’S why I think Mad Men also appeals to me so much. Because I see those women, many of whom are extremely attractive, but many of whom are also just “regular,” and can actually relate to them.

They look like pictures of family members in photo albums I have from back at that time. They look “real.” They look like people who may have really lived then.

They don’t look like some illusions of beauty they’re trying to live up to based on someone else’s notion of it.

I think there’s a hint of irony in all of this somewhere. Or maybe more than a hint. What’s beauty after all? What we’re sold it being, which anymore means super thin, white teeth, shiny hair, good muscle tone, firm and unblemished skin…See where I’m going with this? I bet you can think of half a dozen products you’ve seen advertised just this morning that promote these things to you with the underlying promise you’ll be more beautiful if you use them.

Don’t get me wrong. Even on Mad Men the women all strive for a beauty ideal being sold to them via movies and TV at that time. Not much has changed in that respect. I feel it’s just gotten more intense these days.

Every Wednesday I get a quote from Women’s Wednesday Weblink. I really liked today’s.

People often say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and I say that the most liberating thing about beauty is realizing that you are the beholder. ~Salma Hayek~

When was the last time you beheld yourself? I say go behold yourself today and take a minute to appreciate all the things that make you beautiful!