As an actor, you can’t control which agents want to represent you, what roles your agent submits you for, which auditions you get, what callbacks you get, what roles you get, what the lines are for your role, how you look for your role, how the director directs your performance, how the editor edits your performance, whether the show gets picked up

The few times we do spend together stick out since they don’t happen that often. Like when Dad was able to come to my eighth birthday party at the public swimming pool—the first birthday party of mine he’d been to in a few years due to his work schedule. He gave me a birthday card, which he had never done before. He spelled my name wrong on the env

I’m realizing for the first time how exhausting it is to constantly curate my natural tendencies, responses, thoughts, and actions into whatever version Mom would like most. Without her around, I don’t have to. I miss her deeply, and my heart aches over what she’s going through, and I certainly feel a lot of guilt about the ease I feel these days,

don’t like knowing people in the context of things. Oh, that’s the person I work out with. That’s the person I’m in a book club with. That’s the person I did that show with. Because once the context ends, so does the friendship.

Through writing, I feel power for maybe the first time in my life. I don’t have to say somebody else’s words. I can write my own. I can be myself for once. I like the privacy of it. Nobody’s watching. Nobody’s judging. Nobody’s weighing in. No casting directors or agents or managers or directors or Mom. Just me and the page. Writing is the opposite

Granted, crying on cue was not fun for me. It was one of the more miserable experiences of my life, sitting in a cold casting office imagining tragic events that harm my beloved family. Any given event could last me four to six auditions’ worth of tears, but eventually I’d become immune to the event—Mom

There’s a good chance I would’ve had a complete and public mental breakdown by this point. I’d still be deeply unhappy and severely mentally unhealthy. I look at the words again. Brave, kind, loyal, sweet, loving, graceful… I shake my head. I don’t cry. The Doobie Brothers’ “What a Fool Believes” starts playing from the sad man’s stereo. I stand up

Crying on cue is the skill you want in child acting. Everything else pales in comparison. If

We want nothing to do with you. Love, Mom (or should I say DEB since I am no longer your mother) P.S. Send money for a new fridge. Ours broke.