My Barbaric Yawp

I started acting because I didn't want to go home after school. I started acting because I didn't want to deal with my depressed/bitter mother, our tiny apartment, and my annoying sister. I started acting because I was a navy brat, moved every other year, and rarely had any friends. I started acting because I always felt alone, and any activity that involved interacting with other people sounded like heaven.

I like to think that I'm not that sad little middle-school girl who stared at trees during her lunch break, because she had no one to sit with, but she is my past, and will always be inside of me. She is the girl who first sought out drama club, hoping for a moment of escape to some kind of "neverland" where others were actually able to see and value you.

In high school, my dad would never be bothered to drive me anywhere, so school plays were my only equivalent to social/hang out time, where I could goof off and make friends. So it was on stage, in rehearsals, and reading plays that I first dared to dream of the sort of person I would like to become and of the sort of life I'd like to lead.

Finally in college, the theatre was the place I ran to when I was drowning under piles of work, unmakeable decisions, and new experiences I didn't know how to handle, because it was where I knew I could breathe and rember myself.

To this day, all I want to do with my time on Earth is make things better for people. If I can help one person not feel alone (the way I felt growing up), even if it's just for an instant, I will have completed my life's work. My purpose on this planet is to connect with others. Acting is what allows me to constantly reconnect with myself, and it's magical because it gives me the means to similarly connect with the persons on stage and in the audience. Why would I ever want to do anything else?