I'm in the process of writing my story of when I was living in NYC studying acting. There's a lot to my story and for many years it's been so private and special it was hard to even talk about. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times :) If you're just tuning in, I suggest you start at Part I for it to make sense. All links in order at the bottom of this blog entry. I promise it's a juicy read. These entries often include actual journal entries from that time in my life. I'm so grateful I documented so much! Once I finish here, I hope to expand into a book. I'm posting these frequently but they'll also be interspersed with real time blogs :) Thanks for reading & supporting!
*All names are changed
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After school wrapped up the second semester we were done for the year. Wow. My first year of Acting School in NYC! It was a year of such change, and all at once. Leaving everything and everyone I'd ever known at home. Moving away from my childhood home to be in NYC. Having to find an apartment. Having to learn the subway system. Not even knowing how to do my own laundry or cook a thing. Thrown into a city where I could get into clubs and bars under age. Falling head over heels for The Guy. The heavy school load. Going from getting every leading role in every show I'd ever wanted, feeling like the "chosen one" to being just another student. I wasn't used to that. Was I still special? None of us even being allowed to audition for the first year. Not knowing how to take care of myself or my body. Making poor decisions. Overeating. Drinking too much.
When I'd first moved there I was timid. I felt out of place. I felt scared. It was in my body language and I wasn't even aware of it at first. I moved timidly through the streets, literally, and was constantly being bumped into and shoved. I soon did a 180 and was barreling my way through the streets in no time. But I didn't realize I was over compensating. Approaching everything as if someone was out to get me. Behaving rudely off the bat in order to survive. Shoving back. So many people seemed to be rude. Sales people everywhere were so different than they were in SLC. I couldn't believe it. I took on their behavior but it began to eat away at me.
I was having a hard time with marrying my NYC and SLC lives. My life in SLC had changed, I'd changed, friendships there had changed. Even my home life had changed and my childhood home and beloved bedroom was no more.
I was hoping to move out of my apt. in the Bronx sometime the next year, I was dying to be in the city. I was hoping to find a sense of home in NYC.
It was all too much. Too much for 19 year old me to take on and process in a healthy way. When school was out I fell into a sadness. A sadness I didn't want to admit to.
My journals jump here, I went awhile without writing. But thankfully the next entry is practically a summary of what was going on during that time.
June 3
"Where to begin Where to even begin? So here I am, come full circle back in SLC. The snow globe, no, my snow globe, enclosed in those mountains I once wanted to be gone from. I think about all that went on on this snow globe alone, how much has and is and always will go on outside of it. How it once was my world, my oyster, and how now the mountains have closed in a little. A little more each time I'm home. How good it smells here. How safe it feels. How peaceful, how easy, how perfect it is. I'm constantly evolving, always changing, learning and growing. Realizing, realizing! What a time for reflection it's been. What a dark period I'm out of now. Knowing how to answer the question of how life is in NYC.
I'm happy. I'm scared to even write it. So many things I'm scared to write, feel, think. I'm afraid if I'm at peace, and even dare to breathe it will all disappear. I feel the shattered, out of order pieces of my life falling, sliding into place and I don't want to lose that. Something tells me I wont know that I've survived the toughest year of my life and can come out on top. There's been so many versions of me. I feel like they were different people. Tonight my mom said she felt as though I put myself on hold while in NYC this first year. I agree. I was on auto pilot.
Now that I'm home to reflect and re-gather myself, I can't believe how tough this year was. I'd never want to live it again. I didn't have time to think about what I was doing. I never let it sink in the entire time I was there. I feel as though I've wasted a year of my life. Or an important few months, anyway. Not in the way of pursuing my goals, chasing a dream or working on the career, but personally. I was neglectful, stupid and completely abusive. Destructive, even. I was letting my body go. I couldn't get myself straightened out in the way of what was now "right" or "wrong". Doing anything and everything along the way because I wasn't myself. I was desperately and rapidly trying to put all these pieces together, to build a life. A new identity. I wanted a boyfriend. I wanted to be a party girl. A lot of drunken nights I'd like to forget. Friends (okay, Martha) that I didn't like. Trying to like Mark, sleeping with him, finding disappointments and no satisfaction along the way. Chaos. Complete chaos.
I don't remember what Christmas vacation was to me there. Something other than what I wanted or expected, I'm sure, since that was always the case with me. Realizing how fucking fat I was, not seeing Rob and thinking our friendship was just one more thing I'd fucked up. Getting my act together a bit more and determined to work harder when I'd go home. Today is the first day I can write. Really write, honestly and deeply. It was always so therapeutic. And it really shows me how much I put myself on the back burner. If I even put myself on a burner at all, because something had happened to me there. I so desperately needed to write, but every time I'd try, I couldn't. I couldn't have if my life depended on it.
Anyway, I don't even remember my plane ride home from Christmas vacation. I do remember opening that door to my room that morning in the Bronx, laying out my clothes from y suitcase so they wouldn't look too awful, laying down and falling asleep for barely two hours in the wee hours of the morning before I had to be at work study. How that room was musty. Unfeeling, suddenly. How I had one week of work study to make up before school started. How I'd run up my cell phone bill a thousand dollars and had no phone. How I felt sad but didn't dare to think of it so I could still thrive somehow...
...the first six weeks of that spring semester much better. Me busting my ass big time for school. Me going back to SLC for one week of spring break. Such weird, bad energy. It all happened so fast. I didn't tell friends I'd be home. It was so boring all day by myself I would have been better off in NYC. Even The Guy called! The next and last six weeks of the spring semester were much more lazy. More positive in some ways, but at the same time the worst of my life. I was done with the god damn technique, I felt schooled - out. I was more homesick each passing day. Realizing my joy was performing. Plays, which I hadn't done since september.
I hated Martha and loathed the thought of her in my apartment. I hated my fucking apartment. Hated the neighborhood. The fuckers that yell and stare and hiss on the streets and in the deli's I'm forced to go to right by my place, where I couldn't stay out of during a sugar (namely cookie) addiction (which I've now conquered, thank god). I'd eat a whole fucking bag by myself in two days!
The subway rides were getting longer and even more grueling each ride. By the time school was out I found myself at an all time low. I was so depressed. I'd watch t.v. all day and night. For one weekend I was actually even panicked to walk outside, let alone peel myself up out of bed to walk to the bathroom. When I went outside I was scared, confused and disoriented. I couldn't make any kind of decisions. I didn't have a desire to do a thing. I was lethargic.
But now that I'm reflecting it wasn't all bad. In school, second semester totally surpassed fall semester. I absolutely loved my group and grew like you wouldn't believe as an actress. I went on an incredible journey with "Golden Boy" as well as closed my first year with it by having the last scene of it on the last day of the last class with Tucker. I was one of three first years to do the All School Presentation, and the only first year to do a scene for Mamet.
I ended up getting my ass to auditions, though. Some bad, some good. Then my aunt Adrianna came to visit..."
Adrianna was the aunt who was best friends with Kyle. Kyle from the very beginning of my NYC journey. She had lived in NYC herself, for ten years. At first she worked as a nanny then later in the legal field. She had her share of crazy stories, nights out, good and bad apartments, friends and broken hearts. She often came to NYC to visit.
She was coming right smack in the middle of my darkest hour. I wasn't really up for visitors...but maybe someone was about to come who would truly understand? A lot happened during her visit that I'll always remember. That part of the story will come next.
Part 1: http://beanerlarue.blogspot.com/2011/06/new-york-state-of-mind.html
Part 2: http://beanerlarue.blogspot.com/2011/06/new-york-state-of-mind-part-ii.html
Part 3: http://beanerlarue.blogspot.com/2011/06/my-new-york-diaries-part-3.html
Part 4: http://beanerlarue.blogspot.com/2011/06/my-new-york-diaries-part-4.html
Part 5: http://beanerlarue.blogspot.com/2011/06/my-new-york-diaries-part-5.html
Part 6: http://beanerlarue.blogspot.com/2011/06/my-new-york-diaries-part-6.html
Part 7: http://beanerlarue.blogspot.com/2011/06/im-in-process-of-writing-my-story-of.html
Part 8: http://beanerlarue.blogspot.com/2011/06/my-new-york-diaries-part-8.html
Time to Press Pause: http://beanerlarue.blogspot.com/2011/06/time-to-press-pause.html
Part 9: http://beanerlarue.blogspot.com/2011/06/my-new-york-diaries-part-9.html
Part 10: http://beanerlarue.blogspot.com/2011/06/my-new-york-diaries-part-10.html
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