My Life - Section 8
Art
Art
From the age of four, I was a performer. A member of several traveling theater companies, theater made me feel safe. Performing is where I felt the most at home. On a stage playing a character, I can be anyone and do anything and be celebrated for it. I can be big and loud and messy and ugly. I can be in full expression and not make anyone else feel small, offended or turned off. This uncensored, self-expression was everything to me and being part of a team felt overwhelmingly purposeful. I sang, danced, wrote poetry, essays and short stories, but my focus was always acting. Acting was all I ever wanted to do, or so I thought.
I moved to Los Angeles in 2009 and stayed for five and a half years. While there, acting and art became something else. They became “work.” I started treating myself and my art not as a personal and unique expression, but, rather, as something that needed to be marketed, sold and packaged. My body became a commodity. Something to be controlled and manipulated.
I did what every aspiring actor does with little money and no industry connections: I worked a million jobs. I was a nanny, a personal assistant, a go-go dancer, an interior designer, a caterer, a bartender, a high-class escort and, of course, a waiter. I had a manager and an agent. I went to every audition I could get into. I racked up thousands of dollars in credit card debt for acting classes, workshops, headshots, and photoshoots. All in pursuit of my number one dream: to be a working actress.
After five and a half years in Los Angeles, I didn’t recognize myself. Even though I wasn’t sticking my fingers down my throat anymore, I was still very much obsessed with my weight. I hated my body and I hated myself. I felt worthless, stupid and lost. One morning, I found myself naked on the bathroom floor wondering what it was all for. My life had lost all spirituality, all connection. Serendipitously, one of my friends who had been suffering with insomnia and migraines, and was aware of my depression, invited me to go to a meditation workshop at our acting studio. Meditating, I thought, I think I know how to do that? (Remembering the Ashram.) So, I went. One session turned into two, two into three, and three into every day – twice a day. Through my meditation, I realized I’d lost myself in Los Angeles.
So, I left.
xxA
