I'm Glad My Mom Died

So I start singing along. And I throw on my best fake smile to go with it. Maybe I wasn’t able to bring the tears for Without a Trace, but I was able to bring the smile for Mom on our drive home. Either way, it’s performing.

all special skills that Mom thinks will either give me a leg up for having, or that will lead me to miss an opportunity for not having, like the time I missed out on a Chef Boyardee commercial by not being able to pogo stick. Mom immediately bought a pogo stick from Pic ‘N’ Save and had me practice an hour a day for two weeks until I could get to o

Growing is wobbly and full of mistakes, especially as a teenager—mistakes that you certainly don’t want to make in the public eye, let alone be known for for the rest of your life. But that’s what happens when you’re a child star. Child stardom is a trap. A dead end. And I can see that even if Mommy can’t.

She’s got stage four cancer, she’s already plenty pitied. She doesn’t need to throw Wendy’s on top of it.

THERE’S A LOT OF TALK about big breaks in Hollywood, but so far I haven’t experienced that. Instead, I’ve experienced a bunch of little breaks that trickle in just as I’m almost positive I won’t catch one again. Mom says Hollywood’s like a bad boyfriend. “They keep stringing you along without making any type of formal commitment.”

They are my identity. Maybe that’s why I resent them. The stress of the realization

I somehow feel entitled to my hatred since I was not the one who dreamed of being famous. Mom was. Mom pushed this on me. I’m allowed to hate someone else’s dream, even if it’s my reality.

Mom showers me with Scottie sometimes. He’s almost sixteen at this point. I get really embarrassed when she showers us together. I can tell he does too. We usually just look away from each other and Scott distracts himself by drawing Pokémon in the fogged glass. He does a pretty good Charizard. When she showers us together, Mom says it’s because sh

If Mom really didn’t want what was best for me, or do what was best for me, or know what was best for me, that means my entire life, my entire point of view, and my entire identity have been built on a false foundation. And if my entire life and point of view and identity have been built on a false foundation, confronting that false foundation woul

Anytime I’m having a conversation with someone over a meal, there’s another conversation happening internally—judgments and criticisms and self-loathing that press on me with such severity. They’re a brutal distraction. I can never be present with whoever I’m with. My focus is always more on the food than the person.