I have always thought of it as the ultimate award show, a champagne-fueled room full of film and television elite, where amongst the glitz and glamour I could discreetly hold hands under the table with Justin Timberlake. It's been a long-term fantasy of mine.
Well, the JT part is more of a recent development, but otherwise I've enjoyed this fantasy since I was a little girl. I spent hours dreaming of having the best dressed hair, makeup, and gown, practicing my surprised and humbled expression as a nominee, and perfecting a speech that would bring the audience to hopeful tears.
As a child, I was a performer. A dancer and singer. An actress. Somewhere in storage is a black and white headshot of me as an aspiring child star, my name beneath my chubby-cheeked smiling face.
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| In a leotard and ballet slippers: TADA! |
In fact, it's a shame most of you missed my critically acclaimed performance in a play I also wrote. It was a modern adaptation of The Ugly Duckling in which I played the girlfriend of the lead character, Snoop Ducky Duck. My role even included an alternate version of On My Own from Les Miserables featuring the following lyrics: "On my own, I love a duck with a beauty. That lies within him oh so truly. And even though the other ducks they say: He's ugly, oh I hate him, he's disgusting... how they rate him."
I know. I can't make this stuff up.
I had a passion for show business until probably my early teen years. That's when I started to hesitate.
I remember thinking I could never audition for a show because the director might be seated at a distance and ask me a question. This was an imaginary scenario, of course, but in my mind, I pictured myself unable to hear him, leaving me frozen in embarrassment and running offstage in tears.
I didn't ever want to take that risk. And so I pushed my starlet dreams aside. I let go.
Since my surgery, and since the blog, my eyes have opened to the many times I've failed to even try something I might enjoy-- not because of fear I would fail, but because I have been so scared of the vulnerability that accompanies revealing my true self in the process. That fear alone was debilitating enough to keep me from embracing what I truly love in this world.
I vow the future will be different.
Therefore, without fear, should I one day receive a second chance to perform, I accept. And if this performance merits an invitation to a future Golden Globes, so be it. Just know, Foreign Hollywood Press, that you'll get my true JT-stalking self in attendance.
