My stage debut was when I was 5 in my church's annual Easter drama and that is where I fell in love with the thrill of being on stage, all eyes on you.
You know when you purposely say something a certain way or do something because you know that it is going to affect someone, you are acting. Everything we say and do we do it for a purpose, although we might not be completely aware of it, we are acting. As babies we figure out how to manipulate our parents to get what we want; we cry just because we know that we can get what we want by doing it. We are all actors.
When I am on stage I can be someone different. I can escape my problems, be free of my personal struggles, I am no longer bound by my fears. I have new problems and new struggles that are my characters; sometimes they are worse than mine sometimes they aren't, but when I am that new person, no matter how hard it is, I love it.
Whether I am on stage or just living my life, I am an actor.
"All the worlds a stage, and all the men and women merely players."
-Shakespeare
I really like the honesty here and how it complicates the central argument of the piece: that we're always acting. There's sweet here ("my stage debut was when I was in my church's annual Easter drama") but there's also cynical ("Everything we say and do we do it for a purpose, although we might not be completely aware of it, we are acting. As babies we figure out how to manipulate our parents to get what we want; we cry just because we know that we can get what we want by doing it"). You leave your reader wondering whether you're taking off your mask here to tell us about acting in life as well as on stage, or wearing one more mask, a mask of confession. Your reader asks herself, "What's Meagan's purpose here?"
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