I woke up this morning with a mixed feeling of happiness and dread.  I went out last night and listened to some really good music and talked with an actor I’ve admired and I should feel elated this morning, but instead there is a part of me that has finally woken up to something that really bugs me about the whole acting experience- image.  Hollywood thrives on it.  Tabloid and magazines and photos and film all deal with looks.  After awhile it wears on you.  Are you good enough?  Pretty enough?  And under it all is this sense that if you are not you have to change something or you fail?  I think for me that sense that I am lost somehow really hits home. As it is I deal everyday with what cancer took from me and I wonder if I will ever have a sense that I am a woman who is worth something ever again.  The crazy thing is I don’t submit or audition much and yet I get about 50% of my auditions.  I can act.  But that does not change that what i still get, is a sense that I am inadequate. 

The art and craft of acting, and work and talent it represents gets pushed aside for how someone seems on the surface and how someone looks on the outside.  I’d never be seen with certain people cause I don’t have it, and it is simply looks- not brains, heart, or a gift to act beyond measure.  It is enough to rip the heart and soul out of anyone.  I get that feeling sometimes when I walk into one of the Hollywood hot spots in town- jet setting and money overshadow meaning.  I know I am single today cause I will never settle, yet this town has broken me so much that I will never have even close to what my heart knows it not only needs but wants.  I have learned though that when someone tries to make them yours and you are not, it just does not work.  Emotions can be controlled, but not forced.  I can make myself not love someone, or at least walk away, but you can’t make someone care. I wish men got that.  It annoys me when someone wants me to care and yet i can’t.  I was this girl who loved to smile, but the games people played to get what they want has pushed that girl into a box.  I may never get what I want and I may have missed an opportunity to have someone special some where along the way, but that does not mean you can force yourself into my world today.  I have been abused by others beyond measure.  I am not driven by money or power.  I was happy on sets.  I will never have love and I will never be held again by anyone.  I can’t afford the pain.  And even my fantasies have been tainted by those who want to make me something I am not-  some crazy person willing to kill for a part wants to make my innocence into a mark of shame and my need to do right into a crime.  I don’t know if I have a future anymore. I have aged in looks 10 years in 2, but I know I will never ever have the opportunities I had two years ago again and walk sets and studios, and I will never have a man look at me as though he sees my heart.  I am very sick of men looking at me with their body and not with their mind. 

I am making a promise to myself to be honest from now on – on how I feel and what it means.  No matter what.  I carry torches for men I will never see again, and this town punishes me for it.  I don’t care.  I would rather feel a true emotion than be forced to being held by anyone I will never love.  I have never had love my entire life.  I have never had a relationship without abuse.  I only had 5 years of freedom from it and that was ripped away by more abuse, and lies and games and the only reason I chose to survive cancer.  Men you lose.  And those of you who hurt me will never know.  I wanted to help others with my acting and some wanted me to with the law.  Wasn’t it my choice?  I need to act like some need to breathe.  I am tired of people who say I lie.  I am tired of parents who want me to be their trophy daughter and I am tired of people who can’t see that sometimes parents are very wrong and they need to not be respected and a child needs to be allowed to grow up and move on.

Even George Clooney, who has been my hero for a long time, has lost his shine.  But that does not mean I am interested in anyone.  If these games were about owning me, I want to be free.  Let me be.  All you will get is the sting of my tongue and the click of my shoes and the slam of the door cause I don’t need ownership anymore.  I just want to go back to working on sets and be left alone by the high school brats who think acting is a club for the popular and pretty- why is it that some of the most criminal and cruel are externally beautiful.  I yearn for a world with kindness and hope and love and sunshine and laughter.  I yearn for an acting world where craft and art and good work get you where you need to be, and not some strange game to get your face on People Magazine. 

Maybe I have not accepted my scars yet?  Maybe this all stems from inadequacies I feel after losing what men use to define a woman?  Yet this is something many of us in acting have to deal with.  that monster that resides in our head.  the one that screams we don’t have it.  the one that screams we are not good enough.  the one that screams no one will ever cast me.  For me my fear is compounded cause I don’t have anywhere to go and I will not sell my body or soul.  Others did not listen when I practically screamed- you take away what got me through the worst nightmare of my life and somehow it was the best for me?  I have been fighting my entire life to hold my head up and be proud of myself.  I finally like me and I have an accident and mess up my knee.  Almost 10 years later, after years of therapy and diet and exercise, I finally am getting to do what I want, and I lose my breasts. I was actually OK though. I accepted it.  But then I came down with celiac disease and I was tripped and injured both my knees.  I fought so hard the first time, and now I just want to know, that if I need to and some man tries to hurt me I can run.  I need to know I am safe from my own family.  None of this was for my best.  Someone even said the second accident was so I would not get into trouble for fighting 7 years to get my knee back from the first.  How insane is that?  My family and everyone should be proud of me.  Three times in my life I almost lost the ability to walk, and three times I found a doctor to help me.  I am a woman with a pure heart.  I will not sell my body.  I will not sell my soul.  And though I know my future will not be one of love or happiness with someone else, I will not give up being me and I will not give up fighting for what is right in my soul and heart.  NEVER. 

Because of the games, I will never completely trust that anyone truly has my best interest at heart.  I don’t think that teaching that life is a game helps anyone.  It does not raise the bar or maturity or integrity.  I wish my hope would return to me.