anna begins

A hundred and thirty two times I have written and posted. Poems and rants and rambles, pictures and stories and narratives. I love this. I love this freedom. I love the power. I love the control. I love the words.

I went back to theater recently. It is going to be just a short fling, for old times' sake; old love, mad love, hard love. Familiarity is a wonderful old shoe. I am an actress. I am a ham. I am a performer. What is the most derogatory way you can say it?

It was surreal, how easily it all came back. How it all made sense. How it made you want to tear out your hair at the roots and run around wherever you were, screaming I want to be real! I want to be real!

It's a fine line, the one I seem to have drawn for myself. On the one side there is that intense desire to know self, true self, real self; and on the other is a desire for that perfect flawless façade. Lord knows I would like to know which one I would prefer, really, in those fabled recesses of my heart and mind. As with all really selfish people, I want it all. I want to eat my cake, and I want to have it too (it always made more sense that way, like socks-n-shoes instead of shoes-n-socks, nit-pick nit-pick i wouldn't change that one for anything in the world). I want to know, just for myself, who I really am. And I want to know how to be the person I want to be seen as, for everyone else. Everyone's happy, yes? Only no. Where's the line between reality and fantasy then? Already it blurs, already my imagination gets me into trouble that I can't get out of without pain and heartbreak. Already I retreat into a wonderful painless perfect world of my own creation whenever anything goes wrong. And it’s getting worse. The world I’m creating fits on all points with the one I inhabit in my waking dream more and more, and that’s the danger zone.

hmmhmmhmmhmmm.

Let me go. The imagination is not a dog on a leash or a bird in a cage. This mess I have to accept as part of who I am. I am not changing it. Yes, stubborn I am. Yes yes yes resistant to change, wise man. In this instance, though, I will fight you to the death to defend my right to insanity.