Stephanie Georgopulos

Remember the bad times and how you tricked yourself into believing they were good.

You weren’t made for the screen you know, and neither was the broken skin where you cut yourself shaving and the almost-invisible hairs that paint the corners of your upper lip and that one crooked eyelash that bends at a 45-degree angle.

We sing “Life Is a Highway” at the top of our lungs as the shore fades behind us.

I was fifteen when I tried to take my own life.

Girls like me weren’t pop stars, and putting my eagerness on display would just lead to embarrassment. It’s shameful, to want something so bad.

The parts of your life that were on pause will begin to play again.

It used to be that I could call you on a Sunday afternoon to say, “Meet us at Shoolbred’s!” And you’d be there in ten, guacamole order placed, debating whether to sit in front of the fireplace or at the round mosaic table with the street view.

You have to do this, though, show her a picture — because you might be the one person who can change her mind about what blackness looks like.

Would it be strange to tell you that I miss it?

I am alive. Very, very alive. For the first time in my life.

I am defined by my career. I am defined by my employer. I am a dancer, dreamer, writer. I am nothing at all.

From runways to sitcoms to just… other women on the street, everyone knows how to carry herself in this pretty little way that I’ve never quite learned.

I don’t regret filling in the blanks of my life with what unfolded on the internet. I actually regret not doing it more often.

I stared at this blonde thinking, “Eff, I’m trapped being me for the rest of my life.” And later, I told myself, “Well, so is she.”

I went to the hospital voluntarily. I was there to make money. I was there to smoke marijuana.

I had ducked out of the sun into a mostly-empty sushi restaurant for lunch, but this time it wasn’t preemptive. This time I had no book, no work, no distractions. For once, I was truly alone.

This book doesn’t attempt to elicit responses like, “This is so me!” In fact, it’s doubtful it will–which was exciting to realize, because women are not some homogeneous blob that look, feel, and speak the same way.

“HAY WORLD, GUNNA TRY U. WHAT’S CON ED? LOL”