Today was a fairy tale

Just like those guilty pleasure songs that I used to roll down my window and fling out my arm to. Something about the wind whipping through my fingers, everything around me became so alive. If I didn't known better, I would think that I had traveled back a year through time. We were still playing card games, I was still pretending to watch tv while really smiling at you playing your game. Once, only, I lost it. I saw those words and saw your hurt and I lost it, silently turning my back to the camera and letting the salt stream down. You told me I'm worth it, told me I'm pretty, told me all the things you're supposed to say. More then that, you meant them.

Day by day I get better, day by day I relearn myself. Now, I don't flinch at those heavy lace up boots and crew cut. Now, I can think about the slanted ceiling and rough smell practically, from a writer's point of view. I could still write murder, if I wanted, but the past is a tool now and no longer the cause. I hear that he's hurting, I hear that he crumbling like I did once. Used to be I waited for this day, prayed for it even. Now I feel pity, genuine pity. I hope he doesn't lose himself, I hope he wakes up to the world. It's a passing thought, gone before I even realize it's there. We live in different universes now, and everything is as it should be.

None of this makes sense, I know. It is 12:58 pm and I will be up again at six to drive myself to my thoroughly frustrating dream job. I am babbling, and it is your fault. I'm so unused to happiness, to contentment, how should I know what to do with it? I am always as voraciously happy as I am sad, it's the actress in me. You can take the girl out of the theater, love, but you can't take the theater out of the girl.

Soon I will be driving, and we will be dancing, and then we will be alone. Too soon again I will be crying and driving, then throwing myself exhausted onto clay stained sheets and pulling your hoodie close in this 106 degree weather. This fall, perhaps, things will be different. As for right now, I'm just happy. Well Miss Swift, I did it, I found somebody today who actually will treat me well.

Postscript- I'm back again. I'm not even sure you knew I was gone, but you're right you know. I can't give this up, it's who I am.

Exeunt

Mama. I don’t know why you have to make everything so difficult. I look at having this baby as the opportunity of a lifetime. Sure, there may be some risk involved. That’s true for anybody. But you get through it and life goes on. And when it’s all said and done there’ll be a piece of immortality with Jackson’s looks and my sense of style…I hope. Mama, please. I need your support. I would rather have thirty minutes of wonderful than a lifetime of nothing special.

That was my thirty minutes of wonderful. For the first, and probably only, time in my life I was a heroine. Yes, there was teased hair and awful high wasted 80's jeans and a horrid wig. But for once I wasn't a chorus girl, and when I died, people cried. I spent my whole life wanting that, and I will probably spend my whole live reliving those few moments. As time goes by I will forget the nights that we did our lines in circles, the nights we wanted to kill our fellow cast members, the nights we caused the director to want to go into early retirement. I will remember the smell of fancy face paint and hairspray, how hot that vest was under the lights, how that one night everything just slipped perfectly into place.
I have spent seven years now learning that I am not an actress, and I will spend fifty more at this rate. But, as the years pass me, so will the roles. Too late for Juliet now, and soon too late for Shelby too. Desdemona, my favorite, has maybe two years left. I am getting too old for the heroine, people get dried up faster in this business then in any other one in the world. So, through high school college, a job...somehow I still read these lines, hug my pillow, and cry.

What can I say. The stage is a fickle mistress.

Middle Plantation and Romance

I never thought I would give up an accurately recreated pair of stays for one hot sticky day at the beach in a 21st century bathing suit. All of a sudden, I can't even get excited about bustles anymore. Pleats and under-petticoats and hoops are all worthless in comparison to brown eyes and a jeep that perpetually smells a little like fast food.

What's happened to me, a year and a half ago I wouldn't have recognized myself today.

I used to be in love with fashion, with history, with hopeless romance and intrigue.

Now I'm in love with a man.

One man.

What's more, I think he's worth it.