✮Ｓｔｅｐｈａｎｉｅ✮

CH.24: CONTAGIOUS TRANQUILITY

My life experienced a great change at the onset of my teenage career.

My working hours were early mornings, evenings, weekends and holidays. And filming days ran from twelve to as excruciating as twenty hours, lasting five days a week.

In the course of the movie production, I had to learn new skills; martial art, violin and a new language—Chinese.

Technically, my acting career was demanding so much from me, way beyond my expectations; for the love of it, I never grew weary.

And travelling?—The most exciting part! I was privileged to visit China

I managed to juggle my academics with my career. Being a young adult was a lot of work. Then I had to fit my education into my career. Double trouble.

I was enrolled in an online school. This meant I had to do my school work no matter where I was; in my trailer, on set, during my designated school time and before and after I was on set.

I had to be flexible, disciplined and devoted, able to balance my career and my education. Even while stuck in traffic, I was at school. School went everywhere with me.

                       ***
I knew that my story was embarking on a turnaround, faster than I could ever imagine.

I arose at the break of dawn to the melody in my heart for everything was beginning to fall in place for me.

I worked on set most of the times and I basked in the euphoria of being in the spotlight.

I was treated like a star, with value and honour; everyone on set knew my worth and that I delivered the minds of the writers with no exception. My acting talent was top-notch and I had the perfect body language and artistic skills for my role. Investing in my skills did pay off.

Nothing was quite intriguing than this. My dream had finally come true! That wonderful feeling of living my longtime dream could be compared to nothing.

However, something just didn't seem right with me, like there was a void in my heart. Though I had everything I wanted and found happiness, it was only for a while. I felt like something enormous was missing.

I would often be frazzled from too much work and each moment I had to rest, I ruminated about my life and felt a deep void. Like I just wasn't where I was supposed to be, like I hadn't found my purpose yet.

It had been months since I started a new life away from my friends. I forgot all about them, they did too.

My parents were proud of me, I could tell. My sudden success united my parents that my dad wanted her with us and she was preparing her visa.

I knew that it was only a moment away before the world would hear my name and before I would be prancing red carpets and award shows.

                       ***
In the latter part of the movie, Soul Ties, a new role was introduced, a character named Dianne, a classmate of Rachelle, my role. She was to appear only three times in the movie because she would die of cancer eventually.

Melody Hilton was often all by herself after shooting. Her life seemed just as boring as it was for Dianne in the movie. She was a lovely redhead always on glasses and a stereotypical nerdy outfit.

She was adored by everyone for her benign and endearing nature; easygoing and sweet.

One day, when we were done shooting, I decided to start up a conversation with this mysterious girl. There she was, writing.

"Hey."

"Oh, hi." She lifted her eyes from beneath her book with the loveliest smile.

"What are you working on?"