Excerpt from Wishful Drinking
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When I was younger, starting at about four, other children would ask me what it was like to be a movie star's daughter. Once I was a little older and understood, to a certain extent, the nature of what celebrity meant, I would say, Compared to what? When I wasn’t a movie star's daughter? When I lived with my normal, non-show business family, the Regulars (Patty and Lowell Regular of Scottsdale, Arizona)? All I’ve ever known is this sort of hot-house-plant existence, and I could tell from watching how normal people lived—normal people as depicted by Hollywood and burned into our consciousness—I understood that my life was unusual. Like many others, I grew up watching television shows like My Three Sons and The Partridge Family and The Real McCoys. And based on the lives depicted on those shows, I knew my life was a different sort of real. It was the only reality I knew, but compared to other folks—both on television and off—it eventually struck me as a little surreal, too. And eventually, too, I understood that my version of reality had a tendency to set me apart from others. And when you’re young you want to fit in. (Hell, I still want to fit in with certain humans, but as you get older you get a little more discriminating.) Well, my parents were professionally committed to sticking out, so all too frequently I found myself sticking out right along with them.
Now, I'm certainly not asking anyone to feel bad for me or suggest that my existence could be described as a predicament of some kind. I'm simply describing the dynamic that was at work during my formative years.
Now, I'm certainly not asking anyone to feel bad for me or suggest that my existence could be described as a predicament of some kind. I'm simply describing the dynamic that was at work during my formative years.
Excerpted from WISHFUL DRINKING by Carrie Fisher. Copyright© 2008 by Carrie Fisher. Reprinted by permission of Simon & Schuster, Inc., NY.