My First Blog Post

Yay!

I have unsuccessfully blogged for about two years. I say unsuccessfully because I apparently suffer from some kind of bloggers ADD. I 'sometimes' blogged on MySpace, I randomly blogged on two minor blog sites, and I still post every once in a while on forums and newsgroups that I belong to.

I lack discipline.

Don't get me wrong... I can be very structured and disciplined. In my 'realm', I'm successful because I have a strong sense of commitment and focus.

Now, I'm an actress. Not the glamorous overpaid kind of actress, but the Ramen-eating stage-pounding kind of actress. I rarely miss rehearsals. I've never missed a performance. I've performed with pnuemonia, bronchitis, sinus infections and an abcessed tooth. 'The show went on' with sprained and dislocated joints, broken bones, bleeding, bruised, jetlagged, underrehearsed and concussed.

It hasn't come without it's own set of compromises, though. I've missed family weddings, funerals, reunions, births, graduations...

My sense of family is a bit skewed, I suppose. I left my own family at a young age. I left physicially when I was 18, which is completely normal. But I think I abandoned my family emotionally sometime between 16 and 17. I could say it was the typical scenario where my parents divorced and I was disenchanted with the institution of marriage and felt I'd been hand-fed lies about relationships all my life. I sought solace in a physical relationship with my boyfriend and was 3 months pregnant at my high school graduation. But I won't discount my own responsibility for what was going on during that time. I was unfocused, frivolous, selfish, and completely irresponsible. It wasn't the first time I had identified those qualities in myself, and it wouldn't be the last.

Though my father and I went through a conflict that really never fully healed, (a big big big crack in our intricate and fragile relationship vase) I relied on my mother and my brothers a lot. My brothers were all very young when I became a mother. I was raising babies when they started High School, had girlfriends, attended proms, graduated, enlisted, etc... and I missed out on a lot of their transition from boys to men. I'm sometimes saddened by this, but don't question that my babies and my husband had to be top priority. Even though my new extended family wasn't exactly warm or welcoming under the circumstances.

Shotgun wedding, anyone?

Yes... they do exist. But even in Arizona, shotgun-wielding fathers with dusty boots are a thing of the past. Instead, I stared down the cold barrel of morality facing a barrage of bullets bearing names like 'Dishonor.' 'Shame.' 'Guilt.' 'Sin.' My father wasn't involved in my decision to marry 'mah baby daddy'. God held the ultimate shotgun.

I did what I thought was 'right'.

Which led me through a most intense and unexpected emotional and spiritual journey that lasted... well... it has been ongoing for about the past 15 years. And I don't see an end to my discoveries any time soon.

So, while this post itself may seem a bit random and ADD itself, I'm really just setting the stage for where I come from, where I've been, and who I am today. Perhaps it will invite some interesting thought or pervasive dialogue where one may learn... or laugh... or both.

It will be a challenge to progress through my observations and bring everything current, but I'm hoping to instill a little more focus and discipline in my personal life. And it's not a bad time to start documenting, anyhow. :)

On that note, welcome to my first blog post and thanks for reading. :)