Potent quotables
“Don’t be nervous, Net,” Mom says as she walks over to me. “You’ve got this.” I believe her. I always believe her. My body language shifts immediately. Mom has a way of doing that to me. Just as she can set my body on edge and make me rigid with fear or anxiety, she can also calm me down. She has that kind of power. I wish she’d use it this way more often.
Through writing, I feel power for maybe the first time in my life. I don’t have to say somebody else’s words. I can write my own. I can be myself for once. I like the privacy of it. Nobody’s watching. Nobody’s judging. Nobody’s weighing in. No casting directors or agents or managers or directors or Mom. Just me and the page. Writing is the opposite of performing to me. Performing feels inherently fake. Writing feels inherently real.
By the time the exams are done, a huge wave of relief washes over my whole body and I usually realize that’s the first time I’ve felt my body since the exam started. It’s weird… when the exams are happening, I feel like I’m outside of myself. Like my body is a shell I’m disconnected from and I’m living entirely in my thoughts.
Lit review
As many others will surely tell you, I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy was also a one-sitting read. I cracked the spine at the airport after settling in at my gate on a flight to the Midwest, and let me tell you I’m shocked I made it onto the flight! I couldn’t have told you what the person next to me looked like, I was so absorbed in Jennette’s story. I was a big Nickelodeon fan growing up, and to learn of the atrocities so many of these child actors endured has been sickening. Note: I’ve yet to watch the new docuseries (Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV), but I’m sure I’ll be giving it a watch as soon as I have the capacity. Jennette’s writing in I’m Glad My Mom Died is at once devastating and uplifting, hilarious yet horrifying. She pulls you straight into her heart.