The Beginning of the Rest of My Life

Obviously, I didn't kill myself. After that rock-bottom night, I began the hard, slow task of pulling my life back together.

The first thing I did was decide that the quality of my life mattered more to me than my so-called acting career. And quality of life meant getting out of my Great Aunt's house and getting my own apartment. And getting my own apartment meant getting a real job with a real paycheck. And getting a real job with a real paycheck meant putting myself first. And putting myself first meant no more following other people's agendas for my life.

I definitively cut Semi-Homeless out of my life.

He continued to stalk me by telephone, sobbing into my answering machine and begging for this, that and the other. One day, he even resorted to leaving me a gift basket along with a poignant love letter: "You dropped something – my heart."

Oh, ick.

My mystery STD turned out to be trichomoniasis. A week of antibiotics vanquished the horrible parasite that had been stinking up my panties for nine months.

I advised Semi-Homeless to get tested, and replaced him with a guy from my acting class.

A white guy from my acting class. A 6'2", 200-pound, body-builder white guy who once doubled for Ah-nuld as a stunt man.

Was it a long-lasting, close, satisfying relationship?

No.

It was a relationship of sexual convenience.

But at least it was sane. Stunt Man looked good, smelled good, turned me on, owned his own home, and most importantly, had good sense.

I started packing. I didn't have a place to go yet, and I didn't have a job yet. But I was 100% clear that my days as a nursemaid were over.

Mr. Sweet Talker tried to lay the guilt on thick. "You are all that old lady has got. Don't leave her. She loves you. If you leave her, I don't know what will happen. You know, she doesn't have long to live."

Thank God, I didn't listen. Great Aunt outlived Mr. Sweet Talker. She outlived Neighborhood Watch. She even outlived her nephew, my Uncle Gaunt, who moved in after I left. She lived to be nearly 101. It took another 12 years before she finally passed away.

If I had stayed, she certainly would have outlived me. Because I would have slit my own throat.

Less than a month after nearly ending it all, I got a $35/hour gig, proofreading and formatting a sales proposal for AT&T. That was my moving money. And this time, I didn't let an abusive psychic con me out of it.

A few weeks after that, I had a job offer. It was a sucky secretarial job, but it was enough to live on. (And it led to me finding the love of my life. More on him later.)

A month after that, I found my own apartment, in the Mar Vista area of West Los Angeles, 12 miles and a world away from the grime and crime of South Central. I moved in September 1997, and it was the beginning of the rest of my life.

Not an easy life. Not a perfect life.

But a much, much better life than the casting couch / semi-homeless nightmare I'd just barely survived.

(Semi-Homeless Diaries Part 12 of 12: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 | Lessons Learned 1-2: 1 2)

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