If you’re seeing this, FYI, this post is old.
[This is another in a series of posts dealing with sexual assault and the aftermath.]
Granted, I’ve always felt kind of old. I mean, since I was a teenager, I’ve been nervous about the never-stopping hourglass of time.
I know I compare all of this to open heart surgery a lot, but they ring parallel for me in so many ways.
And, I remember even back then thinking, “I’m SO. OLD.” I was in college. I wasn’t that old. But having any time “taken away” from me just felt like I got older. (I mean, I did get older. But it felt exponential, when in the end, it didn’t turn out to be thaaaaat big of a deal.)
But now I feel old again (as if that’s ever stopped).
I look around and think “Oh my goodness gracious. Nearly two years have passed?! What?!? How? How, how, how?”
Also, just like the open-heart surgery time… Back then I felt “on the precipice” of something great. I was at my dream school. I’d been accepted to a hard major. I’d gotten my first job in TV. It felt like the tide was shifting from the life of a wanna-be-in-the-entertainment-industry high-schooler to this actually-getting-her-foot-in-the-door young adult.
And, I remember that feeling like, “But I was on the precipice!!! Why now?!
And I feel that way with this. Finally moved to New York (which at the time, I thought was my dream city), got into this dream musical theatre writing program, got a dream job of mine. It felt like “I am on the precipice!” You know, kind of moving from someone who has a day job in entertainment to someone who gets to be more creative and work on cooler stuff and who might be thought of as an up-and-comer.
And it felt like it all came crashing down.
And so now I feel all this “wasted” time, and it feels like, “did the moment pass me?” I worked so hard so often to not be behind, and now it feels like I’ve fallen behind. So, I dunno.