People Say I'm Paranoid... At Least I'm Pretty Sure They Do.

Paranoia.

The movie, "The Truman Show" is where it all began. I don't want to give away too much if you haven't seen it, (I highly recommend seeing it), but the idea is that Truman, without realizing it, is the star of a major television show. He has grown up inside an enormous bubble and everyone in his life is an actor. After seeing this show, I was completely convinced that I was the star of my own series, "The Brooke Show".

When I first discovered my life was a hit TV show I became excited about the possibilities. Now that I knew what was going on, and the show's producers didn't know that I knew, I could have a little fun with them. I lived my day to day life normally (as normally as possible when you are aware you are being followed by cameras) but when I was alone, I would mess with them. I figured they kept cameras inside the mirror in my room so I would casually walk by and then suddenly turn around and point or wink slyly at. I would then turn back around and continue casually on my way. I believe this kept them sufficiently off balance.

The knowledge that I was on a TV show was actually good for me in a lot of ways. I stopped biting my nails because I didn't want America to know that I had such a bad habit. I quit fighting so much with my siblings because I wanted America to know how mature I was. I played harder in sports and worked harder at school... the list goes on and on.

I have yet to decide whether it was a blessing or a curse as far as family life goes. On the one hand, when bad things happened, I chalked it up to the writers of the show trying to throw in a twist around season finale time or something. When we were disowned, my first thought was, "Touché writers, touché." At the same time, I felt responsible for everything that went wrong because it was obviously all happening because of me. "If I hadn't made such a rude gesture to the camera in the mirror, maybe they wouldn't have written this in..."

As time went on, I began to lose this idea that I was on a TV show. It was a little disheartening to realize one day that the world did not actually revolve around me (although, because I was a teenager, I still acted like it did). I am going to give myself a little credit here and say it wasn't so much paranoia as it was an overactive imagination.

Now I have a confession...

I never grew completely out of this. That's right, I'm 21-years old now and I still wink at the mirror or give it all-knowing smiles at random times. Sometimes when I sing alone in my car, I get embarrassed so I quickly glance into the rear view mirror and wink at it; so if anyone happens to be watching, they know I was only singing for their benefit (I'm totally not, I just love singing in the car).

Perhaps I will never grow completely out of this, but I don't really see it as a bad thing. This imagined audience to my life story helps keep me in check and motivates me to be better when no one is really looking.

I don't really know how to end this post... Oh well, I guess I don't really need to, I'm sure you'll be watching.

End transmission.