I Was Lost

At some point in every child’s life, they want to be a movie star. They see the glamor on TV and idolize the bright lights and cameras and to be adored by millions. I wanted to be Johnny Depp when I grew up, but I was Owen Rhys, plain and simple. An awkward but friendly child with an emo phase and ADHD. No match for the world around me.

My first denial from acting was the moment I thought my life was over. I was 14 years old, it was my Freshman year of High School, and I loved Shakespeare. So, when I found out that the theater department’s fall production was Macbeth, I jumped at the opportunity to play a witch. I stood in line at the edge of the stage on a Friday afternoon, surrounded by veteran theater kids and newbies just like me. My best friend at the time, Gabi, was chattering on about the people she knew in her theater class, and naming them for me, like I was supposed to remember. The script in my hand was just a single sheet of paper, and I was clutching it for dear life, shivering in my converse shoes, partially from anxiety, partially from the freezing auditorium. I kept looking down to face the director, Mr. Ford, but he never looked back.

I got up on that stage and acted like the creepy witch I knew I was deep down, I cackled and sneered, hoping that if nothing else, my voice was good enough. He cut us off gently, thanked us, and we left.

The following Monday, the cast list was posted, and my name wasn’t there. I sobbed in the bathroom until Cody, the guy who I considered an older brother, hugged me and we skipped class to go smoke in the woods. I felt better, but I was devastated every time I heard about the play.

I come from a long line of performers. My grandmother on my father’s side was a dancer, and still would be at 80, if not for COVID. Her daughter, my aunt Kate, is a dancer who has been in movies and on Broadway, and has traveled as far as Japan for her career. She’s married to a drummer. My father, although unfortunately his addiction to drugs has made it so he could no longer perform, was an amazing guitar player. I picked up bass guitar because I wanted to be like him. My grandfather is a writer, my father is a writer, as am I. I felt so trapped in the Midwest where I lived, because I felt like I had so much to give and so much creativity, but nowhere to go with it.

Unfortunately, high school all around was just hard. My mother’s drinking was out of control, so from the age of thirteen, I became the grown up. I was a mother, a sister, a friend, everything my younger siblings needed. I was stealing money from kids backpacks to pay for food and bills that my mother couldn’t pay. I would steal food and essentials like shampoo and deodorant for them so that they could get through the day. I did my best, but my grades slipped because I was focused on survival. I also have ADHD and dyscalculia, which is dyslexia with numbers instead of letters. I failed just about every math and science class I had, because I couldn’t understand, and no one would help me because no one understood my disorder. I remember a teacher telling me to my face that I was too stupid to go to college, and I had never felt so low in my life. No one believed in me. Not even me.

My senior year, I took a film as literature class, and I fell in love. Everything about the filmmaking industry had me hooked, from Chaplin to Spielberg to Wan, I wanted nothing more than to be up there with them. I started doing more research, and decided that film school was where I needed to be. Suddenly, for the first time in the four years I had been in high school, I had motivation to go forward and finish high school. I barely graduated with a 2.2 GPA, but I did it. Thanks to a very special teacher who helped me through my biology class that I had originally failed, I was able to graduate on time. I got recruitment emails from Columbia College Hollywood, a film school in Los Angeles, and I decided it was my dream school.

“You wouldn’t make it out there.” I was told. “You don’t have any connections, any know-how, any skills, you’ve lived in Michigan your whole life. You think with your grades you’d be able to get into film school?”

“It would be different!” I explained through my tears. “I actually want to be there, and I’ll be passionate about it.”

She scoffed and shook her head. “I”m not paying for it. You can figure it out.”

And that was that. I was on my own.

So, I worked. I got a job right away after high school, and I worked myself as far as I could. I bought a car completely on my own. I made new friends, got promoted, then promoted again, I moved in with my friends, and I tried to keep my dreams at the forefront of my mind. I told myself every season that I would try for school, but… I never did. Those words stuck with me. You’ll never make it. You’re too stupid to go to college.

In 2017 I made a friend named Sean who I thought was the coolest cat I’d ever met. He was a big music nerd, movie buff, we had so many things in common. He was shocked that I wanted to be his friend because he was disabled and he told me many people didn’t even give him a second look. I told him that didn’t matter to me. I told him he was my friend, and honestly, he was my best friend. He knew everything about me, about my dreams to work in film, and he told me that he had connections in the industry that could get my foot in the door. I was over the moon because I thought I was actually going to make it.

Then Sean told me he had cancer. I was heartbroken, but I did everything I could to help him emotionally while he sorted things out with his “connections” for me. I told him that no matter what, I would take care of him. He was my best friend, right, how couldn’t I?

Except he lied. I found out from a family member of his that he was a compulsive liar, and that there was no cancer, no connections, no nothing. He had a crush on me, and was hoping for a pity fuck as he had “never felt loved by anybody”. I was angry and hurt because a person who I had cried over, stood by, defended and loved dearly did the unimaginable by telling me he was terminal. It sort of ruined my confidence in myself as well, because I thought I had a real chance at my dreams, but that was a lie too.

I shoved my dreams way down after that. I tried new things in hopes I’d find something I loved that wasn’t filmmaking. I became a 911 operator, and delivered a baby my first week. I worked a double shooting on my birthday. I listened to a mother scream after she couldn’t revive her infant in his crib. I didn’t last there very long, but I tried applying to school for forensic psychology. I got in, but I knew I wasn’t passionate about it. I turned it down. You’re too stupid to go to college.

I thought about going just for general education classes at my local community college to see what I liked, but I had been out of school so long, and I didn’t get the score I would have hoped to on my essay. You’re too stupid to go to college. I ignored the emails they sent, and I let the opportunity pass. You’ll never make it.

I even considered enlisting for the military for free college. I thought it would open new doors, even if they were doors I didn’t want. I was desperate for change, for a life that I wanted because deep down, I was so terrified to reach age 50 and hate my life. I wanted to be happy. I wanted to say that I was finally proud of myself, that I had proved everyone wrong who told me I would amount to nothing. At this point though, I figured I was just nothing, and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it.

Some people are just born to be normal.

Then my little sister graduated high school.

“I want to go to CCH. I love theater, but I want to be in movies, and they have a great program. If I moved to LA, would you come with me?” She said to me over the phone one night.

I was so proud of her because she was always so much braver than me. She was ambitious and kind, and I would follow her anywhere. “Of course I will.” I told her, because really now, what other answer could there be?

Then she tore my core strength out of my body with a single sentence, and nothing could keep the air inside my lungs. “You know, it would be really cool for us to go to school together for once. You should apply too, dude.”

And in that moment, something hit me that I hadn’t really felt before. Normally, when people told me things like that, I’d shrug it off, I’d go “yeah, for sure, can you imagine” complete with an eye roll, but this time, I laughed, and I said “yeah. Maybe I will.”

I had been doing exactly what I never wanted to do, which was listen to every single person who ever told me I was too stupid for college, or that I was never going to make it. I was sabotaging myself by telling myself the same things they had been telling me. I was so scared to fail that I couldn’t even bring myself to try, but that’s not the way that life should be lived. If you stay inside out of fear, then your walls are the only thing you’ll ever know, and you’ll put up more walls to keep yourself in control. It’s like living in a 10x10 cubicle while everyone else is at the park. I realized that at the rate I was going, I would get to 50 and hate my life because I had been too scared to do anything with it in the first place.

So, I applied.

Then I got in.

Tomorrow I start the first day of my sophomore year of college at my dream school. I just moved to LA a week ago. I have a 3.8 GPA. At the end of last semester, my cinematography teacher put my final short film project in a list of the Best Of Cine Students list. I love every moment of my life out here.

I was never stupid. I was lost.