I left L.A. the same year The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings came out and started writing my book in 2015, 5 months after The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies came out.
I have eluded Hollywood for what is the equivalent of two trilogies and one book of a trilogy--which is related to the books the two film trilogies are based on and for 17 months, I have been attached to the actor that was the elf that I have been writing about in the second trilogy to the point someone wanted to kill me and his imaginary wife in my story. Me because we have the same model iPhone, NY hats (pink and black respectively), we drive SUVs and have pets the same color.
Last night, I had a dream about movie stars--in no particular form or fashion, but I could name few of them. I woke up to a LinkedIn message about the anniversary of my book and I received a call from a mysterious number with the recognizable area code of 213. I didn’t need caller ID to tell me it came from Los Angeles. I lived there for 4 1/2 years--leaving two months after meeting a mysterious stranger in my last acting class looked remarkably like Lee Pace.
I asked on Facebook nonchalantly “who’s calling me from L.A.?”. One person said, maybe a movie studio. I’m writing a book. Why would a movie studio be calling me? No one knows my cellphone number except those I give it to and a film studio isn’t one of them. I had a panic attack for about an hour before I just stopped.
You can only run so far before you catch up with what you've been running from.
I had to face reality--it was my choice to write my book. It was inspired by one moment in time by Lee Pace. I knew what I was getting into. I have to own that and anything that may come with it. It is what it is and what it was meant to be. There are no accidents in this world. Things happen for reasons we can’t explain. I traded one life for another and it seems to be leading right back where it started from--2001. Los Angeles.
In the back of my mind, within the depths of my soul, I missed the world I fit into like a glove--the world I started working in less than 3 weeks upon my arrival and worked non-stop for 4 1/2 years. The world I wanted to be in as long as I wanted to be a writer. I’m not much of an actor, though I can do it. I’m more of the writing kind. I always have been and will always will be. If I thought I would escape the other love of my life while doing another, I was sorely mistaken. I tried to avoid it for 10 years but then he came along and turned my world upside down and it hasn’t been the same ever since. This person woke me up without care or conscience and forced me to do everything I thought I would never do.
You wait all your life looking for the one person that will take you away from whatever it is that is holding you back and as you get older, no one comes and you live life with regrets while still longing for the one.
I realized that the one I was waiting for was me. Lee just made me see that more than any other person in the world. Everything I have done since the day I first wrote down “I am Thranduil” has been everything you imagined it would be--unexpected, challenging and wonderful. I am the one I’ve been looking for all my life. I went through many incarnations but I didn’t not come out until I became the six-foot-five blue-eyed, blonde haired Elvenking of Mirkwood. No one saw me until I saw myself. I was invisible looking in the mirror until I saw Thranduil. I didn’t like it at first but it wasn’t until someone noticed how happy I was and how free I had become that I knew I had found the one I was looking for.
I didn’t see the love of my life then because I was too busy wanting something that didn’t belong to me. I had to let go of something I knew I couldn’t have for something I needed far more.
Today, I just stopped running away. I couldn’t do it anymore. I finally found something I wanted to hold on to and I couldn’t run away from that. I love it too much. I knew that the minute there was nothing in this world that could keep me away. For the first time in my life, I knew what it was like to love something you didn’t want to lose.
So what if I have to run into Lee Pace one day? So what if I end up returning to the world of Hollywood either from L.A. or Edinburgh? So what? Would it kill me to just let things happen rather than make excuses for why I can’t do something? What am I afraid of?
Underneath that sweet boy exterior of Lee Pace, there is a panther--a fierce beast not afraid to take on anything. That Lee woke me up. That was the one that changed me and forced me to find myself again. That is a good thing. I owe him for that. Without that, I never would have finished my first book and on the second without missing a beat. He swaggered into my life for a reason. I needed it. I wasn’t looking for it, but I got it anyway. I didn’t ask for it--I didn’t even want it. But what we want and what we need are two different things. This was a gift you don’t give back. You treasure it forever.