the moral of the story is...

when i was in college, i remember having a fight with my mom about how she shouldn't try protecting me all the time because she can't anyway, so she should just let me learn life's lessons the hard way.  of course back then, i thought i knew everything.  maybe i was right, but looking back on that moment, i don't think i knew what the hell i was talking about.

 

around that time, i always knew who my friends were.  they were the ones you fight with during rehearsals but they were the same people you have beer with afterwards.  back then, it was so simple.  i figured that if you can be honest about yourself, and if you weren't out to please everyone but you're just there to do your job, people would respect you and if you're lucky, you gain friends.  you don't have to drink with them but it helps.  it all seemed so simple.

 

i'm not so sure anymore.  i've been in theater for several years now, and honestly?  i thought i'd seen everything. 

 

there'd be this girl who would accuse you of trying to steal her boyfriend, who would eventually try to ruin your reputation.  there'd be these people who would see you getting drunk then call you a slut, who would also eventually try to ruin your reputation.  back then, i figured - what the hell.  none of it's true anyway, so why get bothered.  people are entitled to their own opinions, i don't have to make their opinions my reality.  i still get cast, people still trust me to do my job.  i sincerely believed that what i do outside of the rehearsal hall/theater, is absolutely no one's business.  

 

apparently, i'm wrong.  apparently all you have to do is do your job well and you make enemies.  you can pick a fight in a bar or in your own backyard, you can be celibate or screw someone in the restroom, and none of that would matter.  if you're good at what you do but still have a social life and know how to have fun - be prepared to have someone stab you in the back.  or in the front.  in theater, people come at you from all directions.  some of them can even be people who you thought were your friends.

 

there's this guy - i thought he would be my partner for life.  that is, until i learned that he found someone else to be his lucky charm.  all of a sudden, the cute little things i do which he would normally appreciate, explode in my face like i tripped on a land mine.  that's what your best intentions do to you, when you have ceased to be useful to someone.

 

there's this woman - i loved her like a big sister.  she was my adviser, my friend, my confidante.  that is, until i inadvertently offended her by quietly dancing listening to an iPod.  all of a sudden, the crazy things i do in bars - drunk or sober - which everyone knows about anyway and laughs about the day after, are irrelevant.  that's what you get when you try to keep your sanity, when everyone else around you has lost it.

 

now that's the part i don't get.  as i said, i do my job.  if people like it, then great.  if they don't, it sucks but i work on it.  in the end, i'm not out to please everyone, i'm just working on my craft.  but what confuses me is how people can do their best to attach themselves to you because they think you're good at what you do and oh how honest you are, you're so special, they're so glad they have you in their lives, etc.  but make one wrong move ("one wrong move" is relative) and they attack you as if you really were the slut and unprofessional actress everyone says you are.  it doesn't matter that you were there for them when they needed you, it doesn't matter that you helped them in your little way, it doesn't matter that you went through so much together.  as a matter of fact, it doesn't even matter whether you were a snowqueen or an asshole or the most arrogant person they ever met - none of that matters.  what matters is that somehow, you stopped living your life their way.  that makes you the enemy. 

 

when you are honest to yourself - when you know who you are and what you want to be, when you respect and love your individuality - you become the monster.  you become the victim of a witch-hunt, of a lynch mob, of bullies in the playground.  the sad part is, the witch-hunt might be called off, the lynch mob might come to their senses, the bullies might be sent to the principal's office.  but once you've been targeted, you're marked for life.  people will forever see you as the woman with the scarlet letter and they will never let you forget it.

 

i guess my big mistake was that i was so naive in thinking that i really did make friends somehow.  in the end, there is no right or wrong.  everything is just a matter of survival.  kill or be killed.  

 

a lesson that i didn't really want to learn, but i learned it anyway.  the hard way.