Posted July 3rd, 2003 by Michelle

It is possible that the blog I write tonight will not be much different from the journal entries I wrote when I was 14 years old. A great deal of me has changed, but the change is largely to do with what I feel is important. It has gone from an obsession with the various men in my life to an obsession of what is wrong on a more global scale. This is certainly improvement, but really, the basic issues of my life have remained unchanged. When I was 14, my family was both with me and not really with me at all, I was involved with a group of friends with whom I always felt an outsider, and there was never one person in my life who was a constant. I latched onto various people for a month or two, they became and Insta-Best Friend and then soon they or I would disappoint and I would look back and marvel at the close time spent.

Today? Well, I’m left to wonder why I don’t have any close friends. My best friend Hayley is certainly close, and was my constant for some time, but I rebelled against it when it felt too suffocating and now she has her own constant, her boyfriend who lives with her. Once again, I have many friends at work, but none who I see often outside of work, and two friends who I considered very close not only didn’t show up as promised to my birthday party, they seem to have utterly forgotten that it, or me, every happened.

I know I am to blame for this. I, more often than not, hedge at invitations because I’m afraid of committing my time. I don’t really know why. But it alienates people, and then the 4th of July rolls around and I wonder why my phone isn’t ringing with people who want to see me. I am 31 years old and have never built the community that my brothers did when they were much younger. Not only do I not have any friends from college, I have no friends from high school or junior high or even from the three years I spent in Los Angeles just before I moved to New York. It seems that I felt like not bringing anyone along, although sometimes I think of those people fondly.

What this comes down to, all of it, is the same thing I’ve been whining about since the dawn of this blog: my life is not what I want. I keep thinking that baring these honest, hurtful, and really, embarassing truths will inspire me to create change, but it doesn’t seem to be working. I work too much, make too little money to live, cannot even afford my AEA and SAG dues so I can’t go to auditions, I alienate people, I constantly choose solitude, I have no time to write other than my blog ramblings, I somehow refuse to create a community that would support me through these issues, and sometimes I don’t even know how to take a first step in a different direction.

I do not want to join the Peace Corps if all it is is running away from the life I have that I do not want. It will not solve anything; it will only perpetuate me having to make a change here, in New York, in my American life. When I first applied, all I wanted to do was work in relief. Now I must be sure that I’m not just trying to run away.