Dare to be Different: Dare to be YOU!

For my whole life, I've been different. I realized it at a very young age. I always felt like I had an old soul...listening to The Beatles and wearing bell-bottom pants before they came back into style to my band concerts where I was the only girl drummer.
I never did things to be different on purpose...it was just who I was. Lord knows, things might have been easier if I could have blended in a little more, especially during junior high and high school when kids can be so cruel.
Because of some of the challenges that being so different created, I ultimately almost ended up dropping out of high school, but ended up transferring to another high school and attending a vocational program for graphic and advertising design. This transfer was intended to make my life easier, but because of the poor perception and stigma attached to the vocational program, I found myself living a double-life...pretending I wasn't a vo-tech student and hiding underneath desks if, God forbid, one of the "regular" high school kids came into our classroom.
I found more of the same throughout college, but started to be more accepted since I had moved to New York and could have a bit of a fresh start. I got involved with campus ministries, the folk choir and gospel choir at Iona College, where I got my BA in political science and pre-law. I had gotten that degree because my mom had always wanted me to be a lawyer and I had always wanted her happiness and approval.
After graduation, I seized an opportunity to move to FL with the woman that had helped raise me, a woman I consider to be a true guardian angel. It was supposed to be a 3-month break, but turned into years as life unfolded while I was there. I still pursued my music while down south, auditioning for American Idol, singing at local contests, and writing. I also found another opportunity for a fresh start and stopped correcting people when they asked if I went by anything other than Kathryn at job interviews, etc. Everyone had always called me Katie growing up and I never really felt like a Katie. This was my chance to be Kathryn, the young lady I always felt like.
I also took the LSATS and was working for a law firm as I was still trying to get my mother's approval and happiness even from so many miles away. I had asked the attorney I was working for at the time for a letter of recommendation. One day he pulled me into his office and told me to sit down. He started to talk to me about the letter he was going to write. He told me that he was more than happy to write the letter, that I'd be great at anything I chose to do with my life because I was intelligent and hard-working. But he also told me to think about it before I chose that path. He had seen me audition for American Idol, design a nursery for another lawyer in the office, and design a few things for people in his family. He told me that he thought I might be stifled in the legal profession since I was so creative. He was like a father-figure to me during my time in Florida and his opinion and words weighed heavy on my heart.
I was at a cross-roads. I was blessed to have the book smarts and determination to get through law school, but I was also blessed to have a creative mind that could create in both video and audio settings.
I took some time and ultimately decided to go for my MBA instead since it was a broader degree. I've always been terrible with numbers/ math and I decided if I could get through an MBA, I could do ANYTHING! I had also convinced myself that if I came back to New York, the MBA would help me further my music career.
I'm leaving out a tremendous amount of details for the sake of time here, but the moral of the story is that ultimately, I picked the hard way...and although this journey has been incredibly challenging at times, it has been authentically ME!
As I stand before you today in relentless pursuit of my dream, I can proudly tell you that I'm different. My fashion sense is different. My my musical style is different. My journey is very different. But in being so different, I feel more like myself than I ever have in my whole life. While I always thought it was some kind of curse to be different, I now understand the amazing blessing of being myself in a real way. I continue to be inspired by the people who are inspired by my journey and the fact that I'm ME with no apologies.
I thank God to have finally gotten to this point and I'm eternally grateful to have you with me on this journey!

And if may I take this opportunity just to say that being different may not always be the easy way, but in the end, there is no other way to find out who YOU are! Here's to being different!
My DREAM is a huge part of who I am...find out how you can support my dream by checking it out here:
http://www.indiegogo.com/grammybound

iDream

"Have you ever had a dream that was meant to be...then finally found your voice, which spoke your destiny? Well, I've dreamed and I woke. In this new voice I spoke. And once I finally heard my voice, it was time to make some noise!" These are the lyrics to the 3rd song, "Screaming to be Free" on my EP, "Light Shines Through Me," which, as of TODAY, can be purchased on iTunes!

"Screaming to be Free" was produced by GI Joe and has a music video directed by Rodolfo Duran of DoneRightDigital.com, which is just waiting in the wings to be released! Once KFHox (facebook.com/kfhox) reaches the 1,000 fan mark, the video will be briefly released online and then available for purchase on iTunes!

This has been a crazy, exhausting, at time confusing, and long journey, and it's only just begun! I thank God to have finally found my voice and to have transitioned from iDream to iTunes!!!

Speaking the Blessing

Image via Wikipedia

I was flipping channels and caught a moment of Joel Osteen (not something/one I generally watch) a few weeks back and he said, "You have a blessing locked up inside of you that's just waiting to be released." Sometimes you just need to speak the blessing in order for it to appear before you. And then a couple weeks ago, I had the privilege of learning just how true speaking the blessing really is.

I worked on a short, horror film a couple weeks back called Green Plastic Sandals. I was on the set for 3 days and met different people everyday I was there. There were a few people who were there all 3 days with me so by the end of the shoot, we were all pretty tight. That 3rd day, I wasn't particularly interested in making anymore friends. In all honesty, I was exhausted and looking forward to getting home so I could put on some sweatpants and sleep. That was pretty much the only thing I had on my mind that day.

I introduced myself to some of the newbies on set, but didn't really hold any conversations with them, preferring to stick with the people I had gotten to know over the last couple days. There was one girl that had mentioned she lived in the Bronx so we briefly talked about where in the BX we each lived respectively....but that was just about the only conversation we had during the shoot.

As we wrapped for the day, I was grateful to be one step closer to slipping into my sweatpants and starting my weekend. The girl from the Bronx offered me a ride to the subway station by Yankee Stadium since it was right by her house. I thought about it for a second and then decided why not...I'll probably get home a lot faster than if I took the train the whole way.

On the way to her car, she mentioned she needed to stop for gas before she could go anywhere. Being that we both live in the Bronx, we had no idea where the closest gas station was. It was the first time I had ever been to Park Slope and everytime I've ever been in Brooklyn, I manage to get lost so I was no help at all. We both got on our Blackberry's (Blackberries?) and started to search for nearby gas stations. She set up her GPS to the apparent closest location and we got on our way. Before I knew it, we had made a giant circle...she had taken a turn too soon and we did a complete 360. I was tired and my patience was wearing thin. For a moment, I considered asking her if she could just drop me off at the closest subway station and giving up on the ride. But almost at the same time that this thought crossed my mind, she said something to the effect that she was glad to have me with her for the ride back. I took a deep breath and settled in. After we asked for directions from someone, we made our way to the busiest gas station I've ever seen. There were cars upon cars backed up, waiting for the next available gas pump. I sighed from impatience...I'm not sure if she realized at this point that I was kind of over the whole thing. Eventually, after careful manuevering, she backed up next to a gas pump and I could feel the tension releasing from my shoulders...knowing that we were back on track and I was another step closer to my beloved sweatpants.

We reset the GPS and were on our way. We started talking and I realized how much we had in common...it made me feel a little guilty for having not spoken to her more while we were on set. We talked about our dating history, our ethnicities (she's Dominican and referred to me as "a white girl with swag"...bonus points for spot-on accuracy haha), acting, music, our families...and somewhere along the line, we got to God and spirituality. I can't remember where it began, but it was the best part of our conversation.

We had similar upbringings and I explained being born and raised Catholic to the transition I made to a Baptist church when I lived in Florida. She had had a similar experience and had stopped going to church regularly because she had found a good church home while living in VA for school and hadn't taken the opportunity to find a new church since she had moved back to NY. I could empathize with this since I hadn't started going back to church regularly until fairly recently. I returned to Iona College where I had faithfully practiced my ministry...music and was grateful to be back practicing my ministry. I invited her to join me at mass sometime since I figured she might enjoy that particular setting.

Our conversation transitioned back to acting and as I told her about the newness of my acting endeavors, we got back to the notion of God and spirituality. I told her about the last year of my life...about losing my job, the heartbreak the loss of that job had caused me, the time I spent in and out of hospitals due to sick family and friends, the time I took to help my friend plan her wedding, and several other events that I had allowed to de-rail my ambitions of getting into the entertainment industry. I talked about my prayers to God to allow my creativity to be my livelihood. It was a prayer that had become a kind of song in my heart. But in the same breath, I told her that although I had been praying to God, I still felt some kind of disconnect from Him lately. I couldn't seem to feel Him or connect with Him the same way I once had. I was feeling lost...even while the conversation was taking place, I felt the sadness this realization had caused.

In saying all of this out loud, I had an epiphany....right there and then while I was talking to her. And because I was so taken off guard by this revelation, I don't think I even told her that it was just dawning on me. I said it as if I had already learned the lesson. The last year of my life had been dedicated to others...not something I was mad about...just a simple truth. However, all the time and energy I had spent on others were blessings unto themselves. It was a blessing that I had the time to be there for those so dear to me. And all of that positivity and giving had come back to me tenfold. It was now raining blessings in my life...the auditions, callbacks, booked gigs...they were the answers to my prayers. My disconnect with God was because I forgot to look inside myself. It was with God's grace that any of that was possible. I had forgotten that God could be inside of me....I was looking for Him everywhere else. In speaking the blessing to my new friend...I can honestly call her a friend even after such a short time....I had released the blessing that had been locked up inside of me. I got goosebumps as I tried my best to explain this revelation....fumbling over my own words and my excitement at the realization.

We arrived at the subway station and I was sad to say goodbye. We traded contact information and I walked slowly into the station...no longer thinking about sleeping...or my sweatpants. I got on the subway and smiled as I reflected on what had just happened. I got off at my stop and as I walked towards my house, I was overcome and started to weep tears of joy. I had spoken the blessing...and I hope that in sharing this that somehow, in whatever small way, I helped you discover...or rediscover...the blessings in your own life.