I'm Glad My Mom Died(62)

I wish I could just roll my eyes at this last thing she says, just write her off as an old batshit woman. But I can’t. Mom stuff is my soft spot, the spot that can’t be breached. I won’t allow Mom to be used against me. And if she is, I take desperate measures.

“Okay, Grandma, I’m hanging up and I’m gonna block you.”

“Don’t you dare! Your mother will weep tears up in heaven.”

She always fucking does that. If she knows something hits me in a deep way, if she knows it hurts, she shoves the knife in deeper and twists it around. How can a grandmother want to cause her grandchild pain? I know she’s had a hard life, I know she’s sad and desperate for attention, and I know she’s hurt by my coldness toward her, but still. I do not think there are any excuses for her behavior.

“Bye!” I hang up the phone. She calls repeatedly. I pull over, swipe my phone open, and push block. It feels good. It feels right. A surge of built-up stress leaves my body. I can breathe normally again.

I get home and I walk up my front steps, slowly because of the rain. I get inside, my arms empty since I left Whole Foods in a huff. I was planning on starting my low-calorie anorexia meal plan tonight, but I’m too spent by now. The plan will have to wait. I order Postmates—bacon, brussels sprouts, and french fries and beef skewers from a place up the street that I like. I pour myself a filled-to-the-brim glass of tequila to go with.

I chug down the tequila before the Postmates even arrives. By the time it does, I’m famished. I devour it as quickly as possible. As soon as I’m done, I throw it all up.

Fuck it. This works for me. Bulimia helps me. My grandma is blocked and my body is empty and these are things that I need.





63.


I’VE BEEN GOING THROUGH THE motions at work for weeks. I glance at my lines in the mornings, making no effort to memorize them for rehearsals. I completely tune out between takes and for press—the back half of lunch break is typically crammed with interview after interview for all the teenybopper magazines. Ever since the directing situation, I’m counting down the days until the show is over.

Twenty days left after today. Just four more episodes. And even still, I’m not entirely sure I’ll be able to push through until then.

I’m starting to expect I’ll have a bulimia-induced heart attack. It’s hard to admit it, but a part of me actually wishes I would. Then I wouldn’t have to be here anymore. My thoughts have gotten dark and dramatic like this in recent weeks. And while at first I was aware of the shift, and concerned, it no longer feels like a shift. It just feels like me.

The disappointments in my life are piling up, and with each added disappointment, so grows my misery. Mom’s death alone would’ve taken everything out of me, but since then, the pile has gotten bigger and bigger.

I can’t get a hold on my bulimia. It’s taken me over and I’ve stopped fighting. What’s the point? It’s stronger than I’ll ever be. It’s easier not to fight it. It’s easier to accept it, embrace it even.

I’ve come to terms with the fact that I don’t like acting. While I was able to push through the season for the promise of directing, now that that opportunity has been taken away from me, I feel that all I’ve ever been and all I ever will be is an actor. A has-been actor, because who’s gonna wanna hire me when I’ve spent almost ten years on Nickelodeon? How will I ever get a “real” acting job, anything out of this phony, bizarre sphere? I never went to college and have no real-life skills, so even if I wanted to get a profession outside of the entertainment industry, I’m years away from that being a realistic option.

Men are not doing it for me either. They all just feel like distractions. And even so, I’d rather distract myself with a bottle of wine a night, or a full glass of straight whiskey, whatever’s on hand. I’ll even drink vodka, even though my body’s started rejecting it by breaking out in puffy welts every time I have some. Doesn’t matter to me, the buzz is worth the welts.

I’m hopeless. And I can’t help but carry that hopelessness with me. I walk slowly, my shoulders hunched. My eyelids are in a perpetual droop. I can’t recall the last time I smiled unless it was for a scene.

If I didn’t know any better, I’d say my bad energy is what’s rubbing off on everyone around me and bringing the on-set vibe down to the miserable slump it’s been in lately. But I do know better. I know the real reason.

The Creator has gotten in trouble from the network for accusations of his emotional abuse. I feel like it’s been a long time coming, and should have happened a lot sooner.

I appreciate the amount of trouble he’s gotten in. It wasn’t just a slap-on-the-wrist sort of thing. It’s to the point where he’s no longer allowed to be on set with any actors, which makes communication in between takes complicated.

The Creator sits in a small cave-like room off to the side of the soundstage, surrounded by piles of cold cuts, his favorite snack, and Kids’ Choice Awards blimps, his most cherished life accomplishment. He watches our takes on four separate monitors, one for each camera, that are set up in his lair. Whenever he wants to give us a note, he tells it to an assistant director, who then has to run across the entire soundstage to give it to us. So our shoot days went from about thirteen hours to about seventeen. The general on-set vibe these days can best be described as malaise meets “dear God please let’s get this over with.”