In the movie of your life, would you like what you saw?

So, I was watching one of my favorite shows tonite, Men In Trees, and Marin, the main character, was doing her on-air show about "movie magic", and it made me think. When we're watching movies, we're escaping the reality of our own lives. But the big question is this: What if the cameras were turned on you? Would you like to see your life story in a movie?

In asking myself that question, I'm really kind of scared. I've done some things that I'm mega proud of in my life, but I've also done some not so great things, and actually some pretty bad thiings. Would I want to have the public see my life in a movie? Hmmmmm. That's the question, and it's a difficult one. It's a "moment of truth", I guess.

Well, let's see. Let's take a look and see if we can come to a conclusion. To pinpoint individual instances is brave, and in the new possibility of myself, I'm fearless, so let's find out.

If you tuned in to my life, what would you see? In the beginning, you'd see a very happy child. One who was spoiled and happy and who loved dancing. I was called "pretty" for a while and was shown the truth of that statement very early on and aggressively by a couple of my uncles. Not to say I didn't love all seven of my uncles (mom was the only girl), but as a child I had nothing but admiration for whatever they did, and not everything they did was admirable. Should my mother be reading this, I'm sure it'd be like a slap in the face or a cold bucket of water poured over her head. I never told her, and I still don't know if she ever knew the truth about my molestation or not. My sister knows, and I think she might have talked about it with my mother, but it never was discussed. I can't imagine her seeing that in a movie, let alone a billion other people.

What else? You'd see me studying hard as a student, wanting to exceed in my class; as a matter of fact you'd see me being ranked number 12 in a graduating class of 365 other inner city kids. You'd see me graduating and getting a full scholarship to Dillard University in New Orleans, but bailing out because I'd had my heart broken by the first guy I'd ever loved while I was there, wanting to be home and using my newborn brother as an excuse to get back there, never mind that I had a 4.0 grade point average. Did my mother ever realize that? I don't think she did. Would she like to see that in a movie? How much are you willing to bet on it?

I like to imagine her going to see me at the cinema and watching as I brought home trophy after trophy from school and being elected President of the Drama club and winning Outstanding French student and Outstanding Algebra II student, and my most memorable high school moment, winning Most Outstanding Student in my district as a senior in high school probably because I'd gotten the highest score on the SAT out of all of the studentry. Too bad every moment in your life can't be as powerful and happy to remember. Too bad, indeed. I've done quite a few things that I wouldn't wanna see portrayed in my life story.

I think the movie of my life would show how influential I was in people's lives, though. I suppose that would be the theme of it; at least I hope so. I would hope it showed how I influenced my one time best friend Perry to break out of his shell and become the true man that he is today. I would think it would show the young man I was as an adolescent who won the Outstanding Youth award for teaching a little girl to count and read in the summer program that I was a part of in my effort to always do something meaningful with the time that I had. Above all, I could only hope that it would show me standing valiantly at my mother's side as we both grieved the death of my younger brother from gang violence.

But it would probably also show the young man who went regularly to the adult video stores, looking for a quick 5 to 10 minutes (if that much) of gratuity. Wandering for hours at a time down the dark seedy halls of an all night venue, trying to as they say "get lucky". I would never want anybody to see that part of myself, but the truth of it is that's a part of my movie. You could edit all you wanted to, but there would still be an essence to it that you couldn't escape. You could highlight me winning the Most Likely To Succeed award when I graduated high school, but you'd probably end up fading to me taking my first whiff of poppers, and then falling back onto the concrete of a tombstone in the cemetary where I was because my head was spinning so fast.

In essence, I don't know that my movie would be as inspirational as I'd like my life to represent. I wish it were, but I know that it's not. I keep aspiring to be that inspirational light that I've always wanted to be to people. Luckily, my bookstore days are gone (pray for me)and I can look forward to a brighter representation of myself.

Hopefully, in the final scenes of my life, you'll see a chapter where even if I didn't change the world, I did enough to let people know that I was worth more than a few tokens put into a machine at an adult video store. You'll see that I was worth enough so that someone felt influenced by who I was and all the things I've done - both good and bad.

I suppose the bottom line is I stand by who I've been. I can't change it and there's no editing it out. My movie's gonna have some good and some bad, but let's toast to my life standing for people realizing you can make major mistakes and not die from them, you can suck at the choices you make and still have a life that works for you. So.......let's start rolling. Lights! Camera.... Uhm, wait!!! In my movie, I think Will Smith should play me, and I'm sure my mom would agree. What do you think? Jada, call me!....................(Stay tuned for the action!)