If My Life Were A Book Part 3

One Stage to Another

Introduction

When I moved out of my mother’s house, I spent the first three months or so homeless. I had some very compassionate girlfriends in the girl’s dorm of a certain college who would allow me to stay to allotted three day guest visitation allowance. I’d also sneak around the guys’ side of the dorms to spend nights with my boyfriend on occasion as well. He was a big part of why I didn’t move with my mother, after all. It was during this time I decided I wanted to write a book entitled “Being a Girl in the Guy’s Dorm” but the title reads as ChicLit which I do not enjoy reading, much less writing. It was the beginning of the best years of my life.

Closing

My hurried and short lived life as a Shakespearean actress was much loved and is much missed. There is a drug like, gypsy type mentality and focus we performers shared. We lived those parts over those short four weeks I was part of the cast. I’m sure going through so many actresses for Celia (As You Like It) was stressful, but I was so glad to have stumbled into the rehearsal and thrown into the program. No longer was I playing who my mother wanted me to be, I was myself, and I found a good deal of myself through the playing of other characters, such as my beloved Celia.

Living Literature

Introduction

While I was homeless, I began blogging on a more regular basis and began truly finding my voice as a writer through discussions with other bloggers on subjects of life and writing. I actually wrote a half baked piece entitled “Living Literature” on my Xanga which was the actuating of some mechanism in my mind that has yet to shut down even now. The idea of that piece is that there are three parts to literature: what the writer intended, what is on the page, and what the reader gets out of it. It was the birth of a whole different mindset in regards to my writing.

Closing

After my work started developing in a more… inner… direction, once I started truly stripping down my mind and body in front of my readers, I noticed a drastic change not only in the responses I received but the massive shift of the audience. I lost a great many readers and I gained a great many readers. I went from a genre to a more universal type of writer; it would seem from the statistics of my audience. It baffled me at first, and then I came to a place of acceptance and humility. I do not control my readers. They do not control me. We have a mutually exclusive relationship. And so we will continue.

Honorary Honor Student

Introduction

Even after moving into my own apartment, I still spent the majority of my free time at the Honor’s Dorm of my boyfriend’s university. I became known as an “Honorary Honors Student” because of the massive amounts of time I spent there, my involvement with the goings on within the Honor’s dorm and the network of close friendships I had, all living in the Honor’s dorm.

Closing

It was a short lived phase of female companionship as we all spread out and continued on our separate ways, but I still keep in contact with a fair amount of them on occasion. We were crazy little wenches who had a blast going out being crazy. I never joined in any of the drunken girl-on-girl make out sessions, not my thing, but we had a blast acting what society seems to think is acceptable for early-twenty females.

Sanctuary

Introduction

I never slept well at home, ever; night terrors as a child on up through late teens, on top of the environmental influences. Late night arguments between parents, anger driven siblings and the like were not conducive to good sleeping habits. I did my best thinking and felt the most like me walking the house and streets beneath the stars and moons of peaceful nights and mornings after everyone else had finally gone to bed. Having an apartment of my own, I found myself in the odd circumstance of feeling safe no matter what time of day it happened to be.

Closing

Needless to say, a whole new aspect of my personality began unfurling; carried by the winds of change my colors began bleeding into what had once been a very turbulent sky. Given a calm sea and fair sailing, my journey into self sped along its introspective way.