I've started to like cliches. A lot of the truth I used to roll my eyes at has asserted itself into my life, sometimes delicately, sometimes with irresistible force. I loved acting in college...and then found excuses to ignore that love. I rolled my eyes at the shallow need for approval and attention, all the while trying to instill storytelling in everything I did. So the moment came when I collapsed and was rushed to the hospital, and given several options from the surgeon, and had to receive 9 units of blood just so they could operate, and being wheeled in to surgery for what could be the last thing that ever happened to me (not the last thing I did, the last thing to happen TO me). When the anesthesiologist hooks up the meds, it's like a light switch, you are there, and then your not. My story hadn't ended, because I woke up. I had recovery in front of me. A lot of it, actually. I had a life in front of me. But just one life, the only one I was ever given. I took my ego, patted him not too gently on the head, asked him to leave me alone, and spent a few years humiliating myself in auditions. I began to feel the same muscles again, the acting ones, weak from atrophy and misuse, pained and cramped in emotional places I didn't know I had. I started the professional route. Began in classes again, sought help, counsel, representation, stories. And I look back at the cliche, the near death experience teaching me to cherish my moments on earth. And I like that cliche.