Oy.

Writing has always provided me an enormous amount of comfort.  When I could not find the way to say it, I was always able to formulate words on paper and express what my mouth couldn’t.  Not everyone can relate to this, but not everyone passed notes to his/her family members like ships in the night when fighting, as opposed to actually speaking.

This past week was my birthday.  I was depressed leading up to it and just felt like my life was over, kind of.  Why wasn’t I where I wanted to be?  I mean, I’ve lived in LA for 3 years now (everyone says you are supposed to lie about that and always say it’s your first year, by the way) so shouldn’t my career be booming?  Shouldn’t I be living on the hill in a gorgeous house with more scripts arriving at my door than I can handle?

Fear around LA and this industry of entertainment fascinates me.  On top of fear is a world of rumors circulating to make people more fearful (inextricably linked, really).  People that aren’t even pursuing creative arts in this city have a ton of advice for me.  Jealous?  Don’t be.  This advice is usually with good intentions, but often times it comes from actors that are older than me or from people that are not in the industry.  I find that interesting.  I mean, if you truly believe that, as you just told me, when you turn the big 2-0, you are the best you will ever be, isn’t every year after that just wildly defeating?  Or, forget about the BIG  3-0, your career is over!  I have also heard when you hit the big 4-0, if you are a woman, you might as well release a sex tape and/or enter rehab if you want anyone to give a shit about you.  Don’t even get me started on 5-0.  It’s suicide time, baby!

Now, since the people giving me this advice are almost always older than I am, my response has recently become, “If that is true, why are you here still?  Is your goal to talk enough people out of it that your pool of competition is less?”

(Since this post is boo town, I am putting in this shot I took in Santa Monica that is not)

This past birthday was really one of the worst I have ever had.  My personal life was in shambles, the manager that seemed interested in me wasn’t responding to my emails anymore, I got asked by a friend what my “real” plan was since acting wasn’t working for me, my car was totaled by a bitch on her phone 3 weeks prior and I was in stupid amounts of pain still, and I had planned nothing fun, so I was setting myself up for some bullshit. Adding to the awesome was getting dumped by my boyfriend of over two years (motivated partially by the advice of his family that hated me) the day after this painful birthday.  Granted, it was a long time coming and we had both just stopped trying, but still it wasn’t fun.

This entry is, contrary to all the evidence, not a pity party.  It’s a picture painter for why I can confidently state that this birthday blew serious ass and things need to change.  Now, that said, I have allowed myself to drink more soda in 4 days than one person should consume in a lifetime and I let my Physical Therapist know that pain be damned, I was running today.  He said, “While I don’t advise you start physical activity yet, just take it easy.”  I decided to tune him out, drive straight to the beach and run 5 miles.  I have not run in a month and due to the back brace I wear, I’m convinced my lungs shrank.  But, I went for that run and I feel emotionally a bit better (minus the wrenching pain in my back).

When did fear start to overtake every decision I ever made? While in college, I jumped out of a goddamn plane on Saturday morning when a boy I liked asked me on Friday night.  I literally spent 5 minutes debating, and less than 8 hours later, I was on the plane.  Also in college, when a friend of mine said she wanted to go to see a play that was 6 hours away, I said, “let’s go”.  We left class, drove there, and were back for our 10am Spanish class the next day.  Moving to California was a decision that took about a month to decide on while working at a complete shit job.  Moving to LA and leaving an amazing job took me about a month to execute as well.  So, what changed?

Somewhere between moving to LA and now, I got scared.  I got scared my acting blew.  I got scared that I wasn’t pretty enough.  I got scared that my parents would get sick and I would have to move home, only to never move back out here again.  I felt alone and unsupported the more afraid I got.  My fear reached new heights when I was treading water with acting and one of my bosses at my day job continued to be verbally abusive to me (while I allowed it).

And then, I saw my own part in it all.

I was saying all of these terrible things to myself.  When other, insecure people confirmed my fears, my depth of self judgement went haywire.  I was not able to see straight and it was mostly from my own design.  No one ever said to me I was a joke, and even if they had, there are loads of other people that heard that too (Michael Jordan being told he was bad at basketball in High School being my favorite).  So, why was I letting myself believe all of the worst things possible?  Why was I saying it wasn’t going to work for me?!

Look, I do not believe you feel FULLY compelled to do something only to watch yourself fall further into failure.  I do not believe that yet another failed relationship means you aren’t right for someone.  I certainly do not believe that I’m going to be unhappy forever.   I do believe that there is a successful film heading my way.  I do believe the writing I have done will get some money in my pocket.  And, I do believe that while this industry isn’t for everyone, it is for me.  

But, it hurts right now.

And that’s ok.

Moral of the Story: Birthday Redux.  For the rest of the year.  Everybody, join me!