[AN: Disclaimer some drug references and usage up ahead within this chapter...just an FYI.]
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Gym- Los Angeles, California- 2019.
I am a person that enjoys routines, and I try to keep to them as frequently as I am able. I like the comfort and safety that control brings. Some would say that I'm a bit of a control freak (but, honestly you find me one person who doesn't enjoy some level of control in their lives- stability brings comfort and well...chaos is chaotic, and its unpredictable, and the unpredictable is scary...and sure it may be fun for a little while...but the fun has to eventually end sometime.) There's no comfort in chaos for me; now control, stability there's comfort in that. Unfortunately, comfort is usually quite boring. My life is comfortable; and while it certainly isn't boring in any traditional sense of the word...it is however unfulfilling to say the least.
Every morning I try and get up at literally the ass crack of dawn to train. Training my body and keeping in shape serves a double purpose- 1. Great way to keep in control (remember that control thing I mentioned?) 2. Keeping in shape and looking good in LA as an aspiring actress is kind of essential to trying to get (or keep) any kind of job here. Also, it's important to note that training serves an unmentioned third purpose- releasing the built-up anger and frustration one gets at not landing a role or keeping a job in LA as an aspiring actress. Basically, I was a living, breathing, fucking cliché. Four years of attending a performing arts high school and four years of studying drama and music in college accounted for nothing but debt and broken dreams. So, suffice to say I was pretty angry and pretty damn frustrated most of the time. Now, anger isn't new for me; I had been angry and frustrated for most of my life being that I was an orphan and all (another cliché by the way- the hero being an orphan); but I had found lately that my life had become just downright depressing, and that I was beginning to transcend anger into a helpless kind of resignation for my lot in life. (Sure, I was still pissy and all Woe is me! most of the time, but I also found that I had begun to lose all initiative or drive- adulting was kicking my ass, I wasn't conquering the world like all those graduation speeches said I'd do; the world was conquering me and kicking my ass tenfold in the process.) I had graduated college a few years ago and had been full of such zeal and promise; I was a shiny newborn lamb ready for the world. But what they don't tell you is that the world takes those lambs and leads them to slaughter. I was an LA cliché, a millennial cliché, and I was a protagonist/hero of the story cliché.
My basement dwelling young adult existence consisted of me still living with my uncle (who raised me pretty much my whole life after my parents had died) and working part time at his gym in LA (he runs a gym below where we live and trains people in self-defense, mixed martial arts, and boxing). I help him out at the gym occasionally (a kind of family business thing), and when I'm lucky every once in a blue moon a performance gig comes my way- lately it's only been the occasional stunt work (thank god for that training am I right?), singing at weddings and bat mitzvahs, and the occasional extra work here and there in shit indie films or student thesis projects.
I work multiple jobs though- jobs complete with shitty hours, shitty pay, and shittier bosses. I maintain my control though (I haven't snapped and killed anyone yet...), balancing a busy schedule of anger, depression, and lackluster life prospects with the routines I so carefully put into place. Routines like...fucking up the punching bag every morning before I head off to my main gig- the shittiest job, with the shittiest pay, and an even shittier boss.
That's me by the way punching, kicking and hammering into the bag like it's an ex-boyfriend.
"Damn girl, I'm going to have to buy a new bag if you keep at it like that." My uncle says entering the room with a cup of coffee, clearly having just woke up.
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The Maiden Who Fell Through Time
Ficção HistóricaIn the 3rd century there is a story which tells of a man whom had carried a child across a river; a child unbeknownst to him, who was later revealed to be a savior. Time is fluid. It flows like the stream of a river, and also grows like the tendril...
