How Do You Measure Success?

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I am very pensive lately. Perhaps that is because this is a new year, perhaps because we recently lost Uncle Ted who was 88 years old. I recently contacted a long lost family member. We went to high school together and now we live on the opposite coasts. I started thinking of other high school classmates.

There is the girl who cheated on weekly tests and became class President. There is the girl who was supposedly my best friend and we haven't spoken since graduation. There is the girl who was killed in a snowmobile accident and didn't live to see her 18th birthday. There is the boy who was my boyfriend for two years but then we broke up our senior year.

I went to our class reunion and I was shocked by how many looked so much older in only ten years. I wonder how many children we all had and how many are grandparents today. I wonder who retired, who died and who became really successful? And then how do you measure success?

Well, my friend left Ohio for Florida to work with his father. His father had a painting company. He painted offices, small companies and residential homes. He left Ohio way before I did. We tried to stay in touch but after his divorce and remarriage, we lost contact. I have been through so many jobs and now here I am going on auditions and working every now and then in commercials, film and the occasional television show.

What is really funny is that this is always something I wanted to do, even in high school. I went out for every high school play. I went out for community theater roles. I was a dancer at the football games and yes, I was in the Glee Club. I wrote for our high school newspaper. I was very active. And now, I am working with a Hollywood director and auditioning for national commercials.

I remember being on the lot of Sony Studios and taping some promos for Jeopardy. We drove by the studio where they filmed the Wizard of Oz. I remember thinking that I am walking on the same lot that Judy Garland walked on. I am in the same space that Joan Crawford worked in. It was awesome. And it took me back to the end of our school year where there were predictions. My goal was to be working on the lot of MGM Studios. Wow. So I am taken out of the past and into the present. Back to the fake store fronts at Sony. Hey, there goes Cameron Diaz walking by.

I may not have a huge Hollywood contract. But I am exactly where I wanted to be all those years ago. I don't know what everyone else was thinking and where they envisioned themselves many years later. I was thinking of Hollywood and how far away it was from Toledo, Ohio. And how do you get there, to the end of your dreams? Simple, you take one step at a time.