Small Screen Life

When I thought about working in television, it seemed like such a big, fancy, glamorous thing. In twenty-something years, there have certainly been big, fancy, glamorous moments--a black-tie Tavern on the Green party in my first summer at One Life to Live, a soap stylist doing my hair for my wedding and a soap cameraman shooting it, smiles from handsome actors, and meeting people I'd only ever seen on TV. But twenty-something years later, the experiences that have filled my days and made a career are not the big, fancy, glamorous ones. They are the little moments, the working together and beating the clock, the doing more with less, the making it work day in and day out.
 
All these years later, I look at the people who have continued to do the big, fancy, and glamorous, and I realize that the life I have made is not big, fancy, and glamorous at all. Of course, there are exciting moments--I work in a field filled with drama and costumes and big stories and creative people. Yet, the piece I quite consistently seem to carve out for myself is not the big, fancy, glamorous one. All these years later, it continues to be about the working together, the more with less, the telling a story. And the going home at the end of the day to a life that, while full of activity, is also small.
 
When I thought about working in television, my current small screen life was probably not quite what I had in mind. Perhaps there were more fancy meals and fewer "pasta before homework time" dinners. Perhaps there were more fancy outfits and fewer "comfortable enough to walk home in" shoes. Perhaps there were more glamorous friends and theater outings and great artistic thoughts.
 
But what we see on the big screen, even the screen in our minds, is not always the real thing. It is a set of images, a story, a picture of how things might be. So, when I look back on the screen life I have made, it may be a smaller one than I'd imagined. Smaller stories, smaller circles, smaller moments. It has still been a life "on the screen." My very own small screen life.