It’s been a long time.
It’s been a long time. More time has gone by in the past couple of weeks than just a couple of weeks. It’s been several years, and since then I’ve grown old and wisened and can look back on it with longing and regret and total objectivity. I can turn to my friends and say “I was young and foolish then. I feel old and foolish now.” It feels like none of that actually happened to me. It all happened to someone else - some fictional young twenty-something whose life story was so tragic and surreal that it was made into a Lifetime made-for-TV movie - the moral of the story being “See, ladies? Your life could be like this. Be thankful for what you’ve got.” The music playing underneath the opening credits would be Cher singing “Do you believe in life after love?” interspersed with little bits of Dolly Parton’s “9 to 5” interspersed with some depressing indie-rock song telling the sad tale of how transient the lead singer is, and how he never feels rooted or immovable or safe or secure, interspersed with something by either Prodigy or System of a Down, which includes a great deal of screaming and stress and frenzy and talk of getting an ulcer. The commercials would be for massage therapists, coffee companies, Camel Jade Lights, Midol, Feria bleach, Laughing Buddha, credit counseling services, and the cheap Zinfandel they sell at the Satellite. It would star Pauley Perrette as me, with a full cast of wannabes, nobodys, and has-beens. It would be one of those movies you wouldn’t start watching until you found your kleenex. It would be one of those movies you wouldn’t be able to remember the name of later.
Where, you might ask, does this leave me?
I am single again for the first time since June 1998. I have a room to myself for the first time since August 1993. I am someone who goes to auditions that require singing with accompaniment - and doesn’t get nervous. I am a second-time stage manager. I am an actor on hiatus. I am the woman you work with who fills the fridge with thousands of boxes of Lean Cuisine instameals and cans of Diet Dr Pepper. I am newly blonde. I am 10 pounds lighter than I was when this whole escapade started. I am still going to get that new tattoo - once I get my stipend. I am the owner of only one dog (no longer two). I am a resident of the Meridian neighborhood - which is basically Greenlake. I am the only driver of my car. I am the only person I drive to work. I am the only person I buy food for. I am the only person I schedule around. I am the only person I look out for. I am the only person I aim to please.