Absolutely fulfilled, fabulously f*cked
With just a little over a month left in this year, I’m planning my response to my least favorite conversations of the year: the recap. I guess the good part is that it won’t be too different from the answer I’ve been giving my friends in our deep catch-ups over hot dogs and pork chops. The deepest part of me is absolutely pleased with my life lately. I’ve shared more of myself with my friends, my coworkers, and most importantly, my art, and it’s left me feeling deeply connected to the larger picture version of my life.
If you set me up on a lie detector, though, I don’t know if it would reveal how I truly feel about this year. Because in all honesty, I feel like I’ve been fucked in every aspect and area of my life. Every attempt to grow or work on an area of my life has been met with chaos and more fuckery. I’ve taken more acting classes, attended more casting director workshops, and even taken an improv class! My inbox has been flooded with more auditions, callbacks, and avails than last year, only for me to be ghosted by every potential booking. I’ve stared at my phone waiting for a congratulatory text from my agent more times than I’d like to admit, but it’s not my phone, but my ears that ring with the ugliest questions of do I suck and why don’t they want me?
When I go into a room, the impulsive and frustrated part of me wants to do something crazy to be noticed, but I know I’m great, and I’m just waiting for the rest of the world to wake up and see it too. Thank God my now fully-developed brain doesn’t act on these fantasies like I know my younger self would, because then I would be fucked and probably never have a job. I think acting school might be the only place that prepares you for the harsh truth that you can do everything right and still go unnoticed; even though I’m prepared for it, it still sucks. Ultimately, my low booking body count for this year doesn’t make me any less of an actor, and I am content knowing that I’ve done everything in my power to be seen; my work is always impeccable. I am so incredibly proud of the actor I’ve become over the past year, even if the bratty part of me wants so much more.
Now that we've got the big one out of the way, let’s confront the elephant in the room: love and relationships. I don’t know if you know this, but I’m a bit of a slut; I might have 5 different dirty chais with 5 different girls on any given week. That friend roster is long this year, and it’s taught me that I really do need to be spending $60 a week on coffee. As a bicoastal friend (OC to LA), I jump at any chance to drive 2 hours to hear about my friend’s newest crushes and ambitions. If my hands aren’t sore from pulling tarot about my girls’ obsessions, then I didn’t plan my week right. I am having the time of my life working part-time, auditioning full-time, and wondering if I’m absolutely screwing myself for spending so much time with my friends. What if I forget how to sit in my own company? Am I inviting too many people to my jacuzzi? Do they know that I can’t meet up on Friday because I’m two-timing them with my friend in Pasadena? Will my premonition of a threesome summer finally come true?!!
I don’t believe in waiting to see the people you love, which is why it hurts that I haven’t connected with my romantic love, maybe ever, and especially not at all in my twenties. I hate to be the girl who asks: “When is it my turn?” but after over twenty years of nothing going my way, a girl starts to feel so fabulously fucked! Let’s have a feral moment of honesty. Every attempt to put myself out there or give someone a chance has left me more tired and less interested in meeting this elusive person. And when there is even a glimmer of hope, a little sparkle of attraction, I’m quickly slapped in the face in the form of finding out they’re already dating someone, aren’t politically passionate, or worst of all, don’t fit into my sapphic fantasies. So I guess in this case, I am NOT fabulously fucked. The post-shaved head version of me will not be performing for anyone in the hopes of finding love, and if that leaves me single for the rest of my life, then I will welcome that fate. To be loved by me is a privilege, and for now, the best of my love will be reserved for my family, my friends, and my art. And maybe you, if you’re lucky ;)
I wish I could share more details and identities, but we will have to save that for another time. In 20 years, when people’s memory of me is a little less clear and my filter is a little more loose, we’ll have a dirty chai and get into it. For now, just know I couldn’t be happier, except for if I were a little bit happier. But how was your year? Were you absolutely fulfilled or fabulously f*cked?
