Who am I?

I had always thought I was unique.  Different from everyone else, I looked down on people.  I suppose you could say conceited.  No one could ever be like me, those that tried only flattered my ego.  They’d never reach those heights of sophistication, their intellect pitiful in comparison.  I had it all, people fawning over me, people rushing to do my every bidding.  I was on the front of all the newspapers, the darling of the paparazzi.  I only had to go out to buy a bottle of water and they were there clicking away.

I should say, this is what I thought in public.  In private, when there were no cameras, there weren’t any people begging me to come to their new club, or agents begging me to go on certain television programs, in private I wasn’t that person.  At home when I’d turned all the lights off, and it was only me I would cry.  The only person I looked down on was myself.  All of those people that aspired to be me didn’t understand, they wouldn’t understand that I aspired to be them.

It had all started when I was a child.  My parents wanted to make me a star.  My mother was a failed actress, and now she was going to live her life through me.  Pushing, pushing, all the time.  Telling me that I wasn’t good enough, that I had to do better, that I had to make sure I was the best.  If I didn’t make it, what would I do in life?  I’d only end up like her.  A bitter, twisted alcoholic whose daughter was her only way of clinging on to her failed dreams.

The success came.  With the success came adulation and with the adulation came a sense of entitlement.  I’d earned all this, I deserve it.  These people should be grateful that I went through everything I did for them.  So they could spend their Friday evenings watching me on a big screen.  Yet as soon as I walked back in that door to my own space, I became a frightened little girl.  The little girl who had only wanted to go and play with her friends when she was a child.  Not go to acting classes or auditions.

All these people that want be me, want to live my life.  I myself don’t.  I don’t because I have no idea who I really I am.  I’ve been all the people I’ve played on screen, each one providing an escape.  An escape from having to be the one person I really wanted to be.  They think I have everything, money, fame, happiness.  But here I am sitting in this dark room, like I do every night, wondering who I really am.  Wanting to be the people that want to be me.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/fake/