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Jul. 28th, 2003 05:14 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
saitainaDo you know what it's like, to give up something that means everything to you? Something that consumes you, eats at you, drives you. Something that is responsible for you awakening every morning, is the first thing you think about and continue to think about during the day and is that which you fall asleep with and dream about at night?
Acting was my passion, my everything. But not just acting, everything regarding stage craft from being front and center to shouting lines from the side lines and doing make up and building sets...EVERYTHING about it was my reason for living. And yet I gave it up, by choice...by what I felt was necessity. I dreamed of making something of myself, okay, maybe not being a household name but having that one moment where I was in the spotlight, that one show or film or play that made me shine for that brief moment in time. But I crushed that dream, locked it away with a laugh and made fun of myself for ever foolishly thinking that I would get anywhere beyond the lobby of an audition.
But the dreams are returning...unbidden. I catch myself wondering what could have been...might have been had I not given up, had I not chastised myself and actually dreamed.
I wonder what might have happened if I stayed in California instead of escaping. Would I be in LA right now, actually making it, doing bit roles and commercials? Would I have the happiness I used to find putting on someone else's skin for a short while instead of sitting here at local community theatre auditions, watching the 'theatre whore' get the roles I want?
I sit and wonder, at night or during the day, when I don't watch myself, could I have actually done it? If I had taken the chance...
But the chance is gone. I'm too old to get started again, I have years of training that have gone to waste, and the dreams are eating me alive. And this time, it's not fun. I've settled with my lot, or I thought I had. I'm stuck here, the dream of one day packing up the car and just heading back has been replaced by the reality of a mother that needs me. The thought of being close enough to co-stars to call them 'lijh and Orli, of having someone stop me on the street and saying they saw my Tide commercial...while pleasurable still, fill me with such heartache I find myself crying to sleep.
I want to make the dreams and pictures stop but how do you stop something that's as much a part of you as breathing? How do you turn your back on it when a poster for an audition still catches your eye and makes you wonder...before it makes you weep?
I've been in the business long enough to know that too many people share my dreams and it's a foolish hope but still wonder, I still dream, and I still care. And it hurts.
Acting was my passion, my everything. But not just acting, everything regarding stage craft from being front and center to shouting lines from the side lines and doing make up and building sets...EVERYTHING about it was my reason for living. And yet I gave it up, by choice...by what I felt was necessity. I dreamed of making something of myself, okay, maybe not being a household name but having that one moment where I was in the spotlight, that one show or film or play that made me shine for that brief moment in time. But I crushed that dream, locked it away with a laugh and made fun of myself for ever foolishly thinking that I would get anywhere beyond the lobby of an audition.
But the dreams are returning...unbidden. I catch myself wondering what could have been...might have been had I not given up, had I not chastised myself and actually dreamed.
I wonder what might have happened if I stayed in California instead of escaping. Would I be in LA right now, actually making it, doing bit roles and commercials? Would I have the happiness I used to find putting on someone else's skin for a short while instead of sitting here at local community theatre auditions, watching the 'theatre whore' get the roles I want?
I sit and wonder, at night or during the day, when I don't watch myself, could I have actually done it? If I had taken the chance...
But the chance is gone. I'm too old to get started again, I have years of training that have gone to waste, and the dreams are eating me alive. And this time, it's not fun. I've settled with my lot, or I thought I had. I'm stuck here, the dream of one day packing up the car and just heading back has been replaced by the reality of a mother that needs me. The thought of being close enough to co-stars to call them 'lijh and Orli, of having someone stop me on the street and saying they saw my Tide commercial...while pleasurable still, fill me with such heartache I find myself crying to sleep.
I want to make the dreams and pictures stop but how do you stop something that's as much a part of you as breathing? How do you turn your back on it when a poster for an audition still catches your eye and makes you wonder...before it makes you weep?
I've been in the business long enough to know that too many people share my dreams and it's a foolish hope but still wonder, I still dream, and I still care. And it hurts.
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I know what you mean.....
Date: 2003-08-19 06:40 am (UTC)I know the "theatre whores" you speak of, I know the longing, that aching in the pit of your stomach, that feeling when you watch a production and think "I could have done that" and/or "better" - I, too, gave up the dream of being an actress, but I never got to LA or even New York. As much as I didn't want to, I made the choice to opt for a stable career over theatre because I have to eat. ...and then there are ties to my family that keep me in Pennsylvania. So I'm with you on the "family" end of it as well.
22 is not too old. It is not our age that determines our potential - it is our abilities and our desires that do so.
*hugs* Hang in there, honey - I'm 26 and I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up. :)