The Girl Who Had It All
Nov. 6, 2006

I was the girl who had it all – the cute guy, the dog.

Re-write, re-write.

The dog, the guy. Oh that’s better. The cars on the drive, the exciting job, the gorgeous house, the dinner party lifestyle, the biggest circle of friends EVER, weekends away and MOST of the time and of course I do mean most of the time I could pee without needing to involve strangers and I could be thrown into bed – literally, in 10 minutes.

But a few key elements of that existence disappeared overnight a couple of years ago and the smooth moment to moment, nothing’s getting through this sucker life, changed forever.

Was I miserable?

Did I mope?

Did I crumble?

Yeah, I did a bit.

My health suffered and my dear brother died and I was forced to look and deal with life in a completely new way. 

But I am a PERFORMER DARLING, always have been, always will be and anyway look on the Brightside, now I get to act every day.

Yep when I was rock bottom and just wanted to stay in bed, there was always some bitch coming in, opening the curtains bright and cheery shouting

“Morning”.

And yes I did want to say

“Turn round biaitch and walk right back out where you came from”.

“Can’t you see I am miserable?”

“Can’t you see I have been crying all night?”

“Can’t you see I just don’t want to get up?”

“Piss off!”

But I guess that’s classed as unreasonable behavior to employees, so I say

“Eh up our kid, can I have a cup a tea“

Now I don’t know about you but I think if your up and you’ve shit, showered and shaved you may as well make the effort to move forward, move on, get on with your life, meet new people, new aims, new interests, new career, time is money, money’s important – go on our gal, get off your ass and see what’s happening outside the middle of England!.

So I did.

New York was a blast, LA film school was fun and the performances of my writing (not me grammar though) have been going down a treat in small theatres in Hollywood.

Stick a girl, oh alright, a woman in a wheelchair, let her tell her life tales of sex, drugs and rock n roll, throw in a few punctured tires a long the way and they love it!. It’s great.

And as most of you know I am not one for taking the easy route or maxin and relaxin for long. So I am doing this BIG! Damn BIG! AND this is where I say:-

“If I could stand up, I’d have to sit down”

.The decision is made, it’s real and it’s happening.

I will be performing my 90 minute, autobiographical one woman show in venues near you soon!

The plan is to appear at the Edinburgh Festival in August 07, then a 3-5 night run in New York in Oct 07 and THEN I have a pencil and it is a PENCIL AT THIS STAGE (but eizsher smeizsher) once I’ve spruced up me batteries and get writing this show, I will be turning that pencil into serious dark black ink and be performing in one of London’s most prestigious West End Theatres in Spring 08.  This I am doing for The Jennifer Trust – the UK charity that represents my lot. Children and Adults with Spinal Muscular Atrophy.   

I will be writing a column in there quarterly newsletter and will be opening there annual conference next June. They are thrilled and so am I. They have a UK mailing list of 4000 people. The charity funds outreach workers to support these families and they tell me that all parents want to know is what kind of life their children will have. They can support them through the physical side of it but what better way than to meet an adult with SMA who has been round the block a bit – 30 of em a day in New York.

It’s just cause me hairs going grey really!

I will also be performing sections of the show all over LA over the next 8 months seeing what works and what doesn’t in theatres, comedy clubs, improv classes, writing classes etc and will be enlisting the help of some fabulous people along the way.

Plus I am pitching the idea of an observational documentary of my journey for TV.

If you didn’t know any of this, then:

“close ya mouth dear”

— Tash x