As I read through these old journals, so much comes flooding back to me and it's so visceral that I can burst into tears one minute and laugh my ass off the next. I know right now the beginning of my journey seems bleak but I promise you it's going to pick up and all kinds of people, places and adventures are about to enter the story!
A lot happens in my story.
Even though it was all so long ago, it really did take me this long to want to or be able to share it. As I get older I feel sharing our personal experiences and letting other know what made us they way we are is invaluable. We can all learn and teach each other all the time. This was my time of "greatest impact". That's the best way I can describe it.
Late teens/early 20's are the most intense time of a persons life. It is never quite the same. To those who knew me then...I can't even imagine what it would have been like to have met you in my now adult life.
Now on with the story...
At this point I've just left UT to move to NYC to study at the Atlantic Theater Company Acting School. I have been to NYC a few times before, loved it and always saw myself living there. I don't know a soul. It happened fast. I had 3 days to say goodbye and find a place to stay. Through family and friends...and friends of friends making a series of phone calls, it happened that I was picked up at the airport by two men who had done business with my aunts ex husband who were letting me stay in a spare room in their Weehawken, NJ apt. They were very nice, one took me to lunch and taught me the subway system. My mom had told them on the phone to look for a girl with brown hair, jeans and a blue tank top. I didn't know what they looked like so it seemed like an eternity waiting for someone to get me once I'd landed. I was scared! I only had 3 weeks there in NJ because they were moving so it was up to me to not only jump right into school but find an apartment asap! My aunt had a childhood friend, *Kyle (her gay BFF), who I'd now met up with a couple of times but other than that I still hadn't met any real friends. I hadn't ever lived anywhere other than the house I'd grown up in. I was suddenly experiencing a crash course in life! Learning subway systems, a new city, finding roommates and going to acting school in NYC.
10/6/ (a # of years ago)
Sitting in a pizza place on 79th. A little lonely, sense of sadness but unable to pinpoint why. It's so weird. I got an email from *The Taylors (former theatre teachers I was very close to, a husband and wife) and they said something about feeling as though you're moving backwards when trying to go forward. I think they misunderstood me. I don't feel as thought I've gone backwards in the least. I feel like I've gone so far forward that the rest of me isn't even caught up yet. Yes, that's a perfect way to put it. I'm so far ahead all of a sudden, all of me isn't quite here yet. Like a combination of being a playing piece in a chess game and The Matrix. Somewhere between time and space and worlds. I feel like I'm myself, more grounded, more real. But I guess something still hasn't, or has yet to believe I'm actually here. That I'm actually living out a lifelong, lifetime dream. Each and every day. Why doesn't it feel the way I thought it would? There! It's out! The dreaded words! Not that I'd EVER turn away, go back, give up. Ha! But it's a while different sensation that I have about it all now that I'm living it, instead of dreaming it. Now I feel filled. But yet something is bothering me. And I keep going back to the fact that I had no idea how much I needed friends. But I'm such a weirdo. I'm so different. There! Wow! More dreaded words! I'm so different! It takes a different type of person to fulfill me. I don't even know if I've ever met someone who did that for me other than various family members and *Rob (my gay BFF). Why? What is it? Will I ever meet "others of my kind"? Is it possible? Do others feel like me? Like they wander through life passing through people, but knowing, okay hoping, that there are "others"? And what makes me so different? What makes up my personality? What is it about me.
...ever since that talk with Kyle I'm trying to make more sense of everything.
* * * * * *
Kyle worked at a recording studio and I went there with him soon after I'd moved. I met Kevin Bacon, who was recording there. He was very nice, and more handsome in person that he is on tv.
Kyle had a boss who seemed a little shady but once offered to drive me home to Weehawken. Of course I was accepted. Sure beat the bus!
Kyle also told me that this boss of his said he'd be willing to help me move once I was in my new apartment in the city. He said to feel free to call his boss for help. I did call, when my NJ time was nearing an end, telling him Kyle said he'd be willing to help me get moved. But he responded like I was bat shit crazy and that was that. I was on my own. Maybe Kyle just said that without ever having talked to him?
One night, Kyle and I had a big heart to heart while out to eat and I was so grateful he was there. We talked about me pursuing my dreams and doing whatever I needed to do despite it being so hard, etc. Well it backfired. Kyle was renewed with a sense of passion, having talked to me, and picked up to move to LA almost immediately. He thanked me for the inspiration and was gone.
Well great. There went the one friend I had so far.
* * * * *
*Names are changed
Part I: http://beanerlarue.blogspot.com/2011/06/new-york-state-of-mind.html
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