God Bless This Mess(48)

The more I thought about it, the more I wanted it.

I mean, my whole life I’d felt like I was destined to do something big. Maybe this was it, and the Hannah that so many other women saw in the limo was someone I could learn how to be every day. Or maybe this was God’s mysterious way of bringing a really good man into my life. My girlfriends in Alabama were all married. Some of ’em already had kids. I was the only one of my close friends who’d somehow managed to make the wrong relationship choices again and again. Maybe I needed something this big, this extreme, to help me get there.

So I went to LA, and I talked with the producers.

I made it to the final round.

*

This was it. My big interview. My very last chance to make a really good impression.

A part of me still couldn’t believe they were even considering me after I came off looking like a psycho on The Bachelor (which was still airing when this meeting happened). I wasn’t exactly made out to look like a dream girl. But by the time this big meeting came around with the Bachelor creator and the head of unscripted TV at ABC, I had fully convinced myself that this was a good thing. It was not only my chance to go back on TV and continue to grow, to redeem myself and show the world who I really was, it was also a chance to travel the world and go on dates with a set of hand-picked bachelors from around the country. And probably, hopefully, fall in love with one of them. I mean, how could any girl pass that up?

Which all came to mean that I wanted this.

I was pretty positive I wouldn’t get it, but I wanted it just the same.

You know how it is when you’re going for a big job interview? How you want to be your absolute best? Auditioning for a TV show is kind of like that, only with ten times the pressure to look your best. That’s just how Hollywood is. There are just so many gorgeous women everywhere. And the producers made it clear that for this final interview, I needed to show up and be the Bachelorette. I needed to “dress the part, and look the part, and act the part,” they said, and I needed to be open with them “about everything.”

So I spent days pumping myself up for that interview.

Thankfully it was a good hair day, and my acne was under control. (Finally!) Plus, I found this really cute pink jumpsuit and a nice jacket to wear. I couldn’t afford to keep the jacket, so I kept the price tag on it, but it left me feeling pretty confident—until I dropped my lipstick as soon as I got out of the car. As soon as I squatted down to pick it up, I heard skrrrrrrip!

Oh no.

I lifted the bottom of my jacket and looked, and sure enough I’d ripped my jumpsuit—right in the center of my butt crack.

Oh, no. No, no, no.

What was I gonna do? I didn’t have any other clothes with me.

I went into the building and ran straight to the bathroom. I looked over my shoulder at my reflection in the mirror, and it seemed like the jacket kinda covered up some of the hole, but who was I kidding? It was obvious, and there was nothing I could do to fix it. I didn’t have time to go back to the hotel to change. There was no way I could tell these executives that I’d be late to my big interview. So I shrugged and walked into the office, feeling about as exposed and ridiculous as a woman could feel.

“Hannah!” they said.

They were all smiles. We shook hands, and they drew attention to my outfit, like, “Wow, that jumpsuit is great!”

I could feel my face turn red with embarrassment.

“Well,” I said with an awkward smile, “let me tell you about this jumpsuit. I am coming in here today being so open with you guys.”

“What do you mean?”

“I have a rip in the seat of my pants right now,” I said, laughing out loud.

“What?”

“Yeah, I ripped my jumpsuit in the parking lot,” I said as I sat down. It wasn’t like a great big gaping hole. And I was wearing underwear. So I stood up and said, “Oh, what the heck,” and I turned around and lifted my suit jacket to show them, and those men doubled over in laughter.

“See,” I said. “Here I am! I mean, nobody else is gonna come in here and be as open and vulnerable as I am right now.”

By the time we finished, I felt good about the interview, and about being myself, but I left their offices still thinking there was no way those powerful men were gonna pick someone who’s this much of a dork.

And so, I tried put it out of my mind.

A month later I was back home in Alabama, sitting on my parents’ couch and talking to a camera crew that I thought was there just to scout my hometown in case I was chosen as the Bachelorette. Then my cell phone rang. It was host Chris Harrison, FaceTiming to tell me that if I wanted it, I’d been chosen as the next Bachelorette!

I was floored. I truly thought I’d proven myself way too uncool. I got really emotional about it. With cameras rolling, I was flooded with emotions that I couldn’t even understand.

But that night it hit me: Maybe all the emotion I was feeling was because this was about something more than a TV show. Maybe this was about God trying to tell me something He’d been trying to get me to hear for a very long time. Maybe it was about time I stopped worrying about trying to be what I thought everybody else wanted. Maybe I should just believe in myself; and maybe I should learn to expect the unexpected and trust that the Lord knows what He’s doing. Every time I let go of what I thought people wanted from me, and was myself . . . things got better. It was a fact.