Day 134-157

I went off the grid for a while.

I’ve spent the last few weeks feeling really sorry for myself and having more breakdowns than Meredith Grey on all eleven seasons of Grey’s Anatomy, combined. I hurt a few people I really care about. I drove away people who just wanted to help. I’m really not proud of who I’ve been lately.

I know what triggered all of this, but to be completely honest, I’m almost too embarrassed to admit what that is. I will say, it’s a pretty classic case of “Amelia didn’t get what she wanted”. I’ve talked a lot about my “bratty” years in this blog, and I’ve laughed about all of them like that’s all in the past. Well, turns out, I still have a bit of growing up to do.

I went off  the grid because I had maxed out on regretful words and actions. If I had attempted to blog anything in the last few weeks, most of you would have read it and assumed my blog had been hacked by an emo thirteen year old who just got high for the first time and can’t stop listening to Coldplay.

Well, since I’m blogging again, that must mean everything is all better, right? Eh. Not really. The same issues I had a month ago are still very present. My heart still hurts sometimes and I know I’m not out of the woods just yet.

That being said, something happened this past week that changed my perspective drastically.

Last Wedensday I had a girl’s night with my best friend, Abbie. This girl is my lifeline. She and I have been through it all together and she knows me inside and out, probably better than I know myself at this point. To sum it up, she’s my go-to person.

A side note: On the car ride up to Abbie’s house, I called my mom to tell her I was quitting acting. I had reached the end of my rope and I just couldn’t keep going with it. It was the first time I ever made that statement and meant it.

After fighting tears and traffic on the 405 (who takes the 405 at 530pm…. this girl), I dragged my mostly lifeless body into Abbie’s house, forcing a smile, and trying my hardest not to burden another friend with another meltdown.

Abbie, of course, instantly saw right through whatever show I was half-ass-attempting to put on, and, to be blunt, shit got real. I let go. I said things out loud that I had been keeping to myself for weeks. I talked it out and Abbie responded with nothing but unconditional love.

Towards the end of the night, something came up that I had heard Abbie talk about before, but this time, I couldn’t brush it off. Abbie mentioned, in a passing comment, the Law of Attraction. I normally roll my eyes at the “hippie-dippy”, spirtual, universe stuff. Instead, I asked Abbie to explain it. She told me to go home and watch “The Secret” and I did. (How many of you just rolled your eyes at that hippie-dippy sentence?).

Ok, the film itself is totally cheesy. Most of the people sound like they’re reading cue cards that were written by a wannabe Joel Ostein, and the people improvising their “inspirational messages” are really just talking about how great their lives are, and by the end of it, you’re visualizing hitting all of them with a school bus.

That being said, watching this fine piece of filmmaking did something to me. I wish I could explain this better than I’m about to, so bear with me. The Secret made me realize I had lost something I used to do as a kid.

Whenever my family and I were in the car together, if no one was paying attention to me (and I was ok with that), mini-me played this kinda weird “game”, if you will. I would put my hand on the window of the car and I would stare at it for a long time. As I was staring at my hand, I’d get excited by the fact that it was my hand and I would think about how cool it was to be alive and I would imagine all the things I was going to do with my life and I would just get so excited, I mean extreme butterflies in my stomach type-excited.

As I grew up, I stopped doing that. I would still be ecstatic about life when something good happened, but I stopped allowing my thoughts to make those good things happen.

Our thoughts are powerful. Our thoughts create our feelings, and we attract what we feel. That’s the basic foundation of the Law of Attraction. I highly recommend anyone reading this do a little more research on what I’m talking about (maybe even suffer through the one hour and forty minute cheesefest that is “The Secret”).

The past month or so has been so shitty because I was feeeling that way. All of my thoughts were full of anxiety and negativity, so I was attracting even more anxiety and negativity into my life. Has my situation changed overnight? No. Like I said before, most of the same “issues” are still there, but I’m not allowing those things to take over my thoughts. Instead, I’m visualizing what my future has in store for me and what I want in life and I’m believing that it will all come into fruition. I’m staring at my hand and getting those same childhood butterflies in my stomach.

Call me a hippie-dippy, but I think I’m onto something here.

A follow-up to my side note: I’m not quitting acting. Come on, guys, that’d just be crazy.