OK, although I wanna skip past this story because I have talked, cried and screamed my way through it a thousand times, it is the basis for this blog and my current state so I will try to make it all new, like the 6000th performance in a 10 year run but as if I'm making it the first one. Oh crap, I'm already droning.
It all started in therapy but then again what hasn't? I was seeing a therapist who was a true angel in my life, about a bf who I was less than compatible with and about raising my daughter, my ex husband, my career... well, you know, therapy shit. I began my soliliquy about life as a single mom and trying to be an actress in Cleveland Ohio when really I want to live in LA but that's impossible, cue my hand on my forehead and the angst goes on when my sweet therapist said, "why don't you just move to LA?" thus causing me to look at her like she had cauliflower growing out her nose and I proclaimed that my ex husband would never allow me to take my young daughter to LA, away from him. She then said, "have you asked?" and I of course had not. She suggested that I ask him and take it from there and so now you see why I believe her to be an angel here on earth. You see previously, I had looked at a move to LA kind of like a trip to Mars. I was never upset about it and in fact never spent a minute on it at all because I thought it was literally impossible but with one mere suggestion she opened the world of LA to me and oh so many possibilities. Years later I have wondered if she never said this would I have been so battered by life or feel that way or would I have figured something else out. This is one of my many unanswered questions of my life.
So I asked my ex husband what he would think of me and my daughter moving to LA. I gave him the floor to say whatever he felt and even said I would never take her out of state without your ok. His response? "I don't care if you go to LA. Go, but if you want me to see her it will be up to you to fly her back and forth because I won't pay for plane tickets for either of us". Isn't he a mensch?
My takeaway from that was a butt load of things. 1. was this the kind of dad worth sticking around for if he didn't even care if she left? 2. all this time I thought he would say something so different and how limiting to myself I was for assuming that. 3. Wow, maybe I could go to LA and live there! 4. How will I get both of us there ... hmm... and then as you can see that very fast progression I was off to the races.
Over the next however many months, weeks or days, I managed to determine all of what I needed to move. I found my daughter a great school and had her transcripts sent there. I found an adorable apartment in that school district. I had a side job that would keep us financially ok while I got an agent and my first LA acting job. I had met with several casting directors who were thrilled I was moving. Forget Hot in Cleveland. I was Hot in LA. For once in my life I had all of my ducks in a row and they were all ducks!
So you know that there is no damn way I'm going to end this first post with a happy bow right? Nope, the shit soon thereafter hit the fan. I was working the auto show and before I went to my shift I got a call from my daughter's school saying she had been crying every day for a while. So when I picked up my daughter from school I asked her about it and I remember her anser to this day. She said, "Mom I know I said I wanted to go to LA but I really don't.,I'm just doing it for you". To say my heart sunk doesn't do it justice. It's just that I know myself so well and the guilt would never let me ask a 13 year old to uproot her life just for my happiness. I knew what I had to do. When she told me why she had been crying I said very little and didn't offer a solution. I didn't want her to know that I was going to change my entire course because of what she just said. I didn't want her to bear that burden on her tiny shoulders so I waited 3 days. I will never forget that day. I was at the auto show, working and I called her from my cell to say this, "I know you really were looking forward to seeing California but Mommy got a gig locally and I just can't leave. You're going to have to go to high school around here, honey. I'm sorry". She didn't think twice about it and was all happy. I knew my job was done. I made her heart feel better without making her feel guilt about it. My heart however, that was a different story. I literally cried every day for the next 3 months. I was mourning the loss of my dream.
Oh how I wish the story ended there but there is so much more. Soon after my daughter started high school, I got a call from my agent for an audition. It was to host boat show on TV. It would require that I host and produce it and the bucks were big. It also involved travel so I would not be sentenced to always being in Ohio. Fast forward to us signing actual contracts. They found me to be the best person for the job and I was able to begin looking at buying a house (my first ever) in a range that was 3 times bigger than ever. I was going to live with my daughter in Ohio but have my own tv show and travel. It seemed like the universe had lined up that other catastrophy ever so perfectly so I could then realize my dream in a way unimagined. Then the other shoe dropped, without going into any more detail, the producer who was trying to hire me to do this job was a sheister. He was a scam artist who fooled me, my agent, our attorney's and several others.
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