So time to be sappy on main.
The top left picture was taken March 12, 2015. Two days after making my Emma blog. I was about to graduate high school and go to college, leave the nest and be independent. Hoping to start my career in acting. 2015 was one of the hardest years of my life and one of the most emotionally traumatic. My first college boyfriend wasn’t a nice person to me, to be vague. 8 months of my life was taken up by him with my only escape being tumblr as I made the dumb mistake of getting him into my colleges theater program.
Throughout these years, through ups and downs, tumblr and Emma have been there for me.
I got married this year. I never even imagined myself having a wedding, let alone finding someone who balanced my weirdness with a nerdy grounding in science. I went from being taken advantage of by the theater system where I was interning at (80 hrs a week with being paid only $150 and no housing accommodations) where I met my future husband because I had no time to meet people so I downloaded hinge at 11pm in the stage managers booth and he commented on my Carmen Sandiego cosplay, to being jobless during the pandemic and trying to figure out where I fit into the world. Theater didn’t exist in lockdown, not the way I knew it. During lockdown was when I got my first acting role outside of college. I was in a short film and it won an award.
Since lockdown, I did retail and now work a stinky corporate job. Most importantly, though, I’m doing what I wanted to do since I was a child. I’m auditioning and acting on camera. I’m a lead role in an indie film (top right photo was taken on set last weekend) and have a few other projects that will hopefully be in the works. I’m able to actually try to learn about my mental health and learn who I am and try to grow from the trauma I’ve endured. I am in such a different place than I thought I would be in 2015 and I’m so proud of myself.
2015 Shannon, hoping you were going to make it and do acting, you’re doing it. You are working towards your goal and learning to love yourself. I like to think you’d be proud of me, and I’m so proud of what we’ve become and what we are going to continue to grow to be.
9 years and counting.