Loving Marilyn

In this post, our goal is to show God's love for everyone on earth and encourage the same love in the hearts of all. We are attempting to inspire a sense of compassion for all of God's creatures and to shed light on the overwhelmingly difficult life that one of those creations, Marilyn Monroe, experienced. To read an article of this sort and not extend our hearts to the woman in question would be directly disregarding Christ's direction and intent for His people: "Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience" (Colossians 3:12).

Sincerely,
The Editors

Love, Marilyn
By: RACHEL H.


As of today, I am alone. Always alone. I’m tormented going from low to low, it’s like a never-ending spiral of loneliness. Yes, me. I, the “great” film actress, have nothing but my own thoughts to keep company. As a child I was always different: different clothes, different hair, a totally different family. I thought I had what everyone wanted: the dream. But here I am, sitting on the floor by myself looking at my reflection in the mirror.

Everyday I look in that mirror and ask myself, “Who are you?” and everyday I don’t know. I smile at this reflection, but all I see are tears and too-puffy lips. I try to fix all the imperfections I see, but it never turns out right. I am never right. No matter how much I try to fight these feelings welling up inside of me. I’m always inferior. Inferiority is practically my middle name. I tried medicines and classes, and everytime they told me I would get better, but I never did. I see a psychiatrist who gives me round, white pills and tells me not to take them with alcohol, but what do I care? It’s not like they work. I took a class to try to save myself with the only thing that could: my craft. Everyday I tried to tap into my emotions and let go, but it’s so hard when no one will take you seriously. I’m a joke. That’s all. Nothing but a pretty face in a tight white dress, with platinum curls and too much makeup. I’m not real. I can’t act worth my whole life. How many times have I heard, “Sweetheart, you’re nothing but a blonde bombshell”?

Even my own husband thinks I’m stupid. Illiterate. Nothing but a “pretty face”. I do have something under these clothes, but it’s not what you would think. It’s a person with hopes and dreams, and a soul.

I am frequently misunderstood.

No one knows who I really am.

Would you know, dear reader? Of course not, I am a shade of a colour never before seen. I am like an orchid, without a flower, a rose of thorns. This is who I am.

My attempts at anonymity are fruitless. No one respects a vulnerable heart.

Oh, I wish I could die and be rid of this pain inside of me!

No amount of pills and alcohol will solve my problems. In fact, I have been sent to a place full of crazy people, but I am not one of them. They are not like me! I have real thoughts; they are nothing but lunatics. I don’t belong here! No one should have to go through what I’m going through. I am kept under lock and key, with nothing but my thoughts and mirror. No wonder I’m going insane.

The silence of the night brings out the emotions in people that are locked up inside of them. I think of all the things I left unsaid; all the times I looking in the mirror and screamed. All the moments I missed, because I was too dumb. Comparisons can bring out the sorrow in a person; the great film actress who couldn’t act.

Why do things always end up the way they do? This is the question I have to ask myself. If I look back on my life, have I done what I was meant to do? I have to start at the beginning.

I was always different than the others, adopted and never wanted or needed. I was the one with the ugly clothes and the tattered raincoat. No friends, no laughter, and yet I always managed to find a smile to put on my face.Where is that smile now? It’s somewhere between the sun and the moon, in an unreachable place, high above the stars.

My life wasn’t all misery, was it? No, it can’t have been. No one’s life is complete misery and hopelessness. I find refuge in my craft. When I am on stage, I forget the world around me, and all that is in it. I play with the camera like a child plays with her doll. I embrace it, seduce it and show it the love it deserves. After all, I give it what should have been given to me.

Oh I fall so fast? I spiral from one love to the next. I can never find refuge in one man’s arms. I thought I had found a man who would always find me a bed to lie in, but all I was left with was recipes and empty promises. I try again and again, always wanting more. But all I ever find is a man who thinks I’m stupid, worthless, nothing more than company in bed. That’s all I’ve ever been to men. I’ve been used and I have used, just to get ahead. Is that all life is about, just getting ahead, going from paycheque to paycheque? I sure hope there is more to this like than this constant immobility.

But there must be hope somewhere in the darkness that is my life. Something that takes the pain, the anguish, the anxiety away. Poetry and knowledge are what I sought to find the light. I read books, pages upon pages. Freud, Nietzsche, Plato; nothing could fill the fruitless void that is my existence.

I must have been happy, even for the smallest second of my tormented existence, but when and why?

It was a day many years in my past. I wore a blue dress, which draped my curves like the night cloaks the day. It was Christmas, the saddest time of the year for a girl. The lights, the parties- I don’t care for them, just like a swine doesn’t care for pearls. I stood with my platinum curls and those ugly over-plump lips waiting for this night to be over and gone when he saw me. He was not like the others. For once in my life, I felt a warm glow tingling inside this hollow shell that is my body. And I was happy. He picked me up like a penny in a parking lot and showered me with more diamonds than there are stars in the sky. But what are diamonds if you can’t be who you are? Just when I had thought that I was of meaning to something, someone in this world, I am again “nothing but a pretty face” and a “good little housewife.”

I, the great actress, once again alone with diamonds in my hand, flowers in my hair and deadened eyes. Do I have no meaning to anyone in this world? Does respect not fall on those who give everything to what they love?

I sit in this prison, with nothing but my thoughts and a tabloid magazine reading “ The Beauty with No Brains”. These white walls bring out the ugly in me. I’m becoming what I most despise.

Oh help me from this disease that no amount of classes or cocktails can fix! All I want is to see the wind pass through the trees like a fading memory. Will I be there to see the light that I have been so desperate to find? I love for the day when I am more than what I have become.

Live everyday like it’s your last, they say, but I believe to live everyday like it’s your first time falling in love. That’s a moment they can't take away… on that day when for the first time in your entire life, you’re not alone.

Love, Marilyn