If you’re getting notified about this, FYI, this post is old.
Picking up from yesterday –
We can use various [some random-ish] goalposts (that you’ve probably heard me say before).
1) got my Equity card as a teenager!
2) in 3/4 of my editing jobs, I’ve been the only woman on the team, and usually the youngest – most of the time by at least a decade and sometimes much more than that (not that that in itself is good, we need more women, but you know, defying the odds…).
And on and on we could list certain things (like, to my knowledge, being the youngest person to be accepted at the Juilliard summer program I did *hair flip* etc. etc. etc.). But even these things could be listed as failures, technically.
1) Sure, that’s cool to get your Equity card early, but how much have you been using it? When was the last time you were a paid actress? I am getting consistent-ish paid gigs to act or sing, but not as consistent as would be nice, and not as high-paying as would be nice. It’s absolutely not anywhere close to how I make my living right now. Which brings us to point 3…
2) Sure, you’re making a space for yourself in a space that doesn’t seem, in many places super welcoming toward (or at least inclusive of) women, and you’re doing it younger than most – even when compared to men. Amazing, right? But if you want to be a writer/performer as your real, real profession… Then, even if you do an “impressive” feat in another arm of the industry, what does that even mean? You’re not living your actual dream…
And we could go back and forth and all day… One thing I’ve really thought about when it comes to all this is how it felt like open-heart surgery was this giant setback. I talk a lot about how it felt I “lost time.”
I quit school. I gained weight. I had a lot of issues that stemmed from that. And I worked SO hard at putting my life back together. And then, when life was better than it ever had been before, things got harder than they ever had been when I was sexually assaulted. That was kinda of my new ‘open-heart surgery’ to get over.
(And even before that, as a kid, it was like I was trapped as this girl who was abused. And so it was like, “When I graduate high school, when I leave… things will be better”… And they were! It was a tough mountain to climb. But I thought I was climbing it… And then, boom! Open-heart surgery.
And this is where I’ll pick up tomorrow!