I always wanted to be normal. But nothing about me is normal. To be honest I am quite abnormal.

Sure I have parents just like everyone else. My dad wears a suit like many fathers who go to work downtown. I have a step mom and half-brother like some. I even have a lovable pet dog like many too. But my mom, my actual birth mom is one of the things that make me abnormal. She is an actress and not just any actress. She's in movies, big movies. Her current beau is also an actor.

So when meeting new people they look at me and notice I look like my famous mother. I smile and say thanks. They keep going on and on about it until I finally am sick of it and blurt out that I'm actually her daughter. Of course that brings a whole new discussion! Sometimes about her, or the movie she is in, or about who she dating.

I guess I should be used to it now but not really. For so long I wanted to be like her. I admired the attention she received from so many. I longed for it so. Even when she abandoned my dad and me, I still didn't blame her. I tried so hard to be like her. I got a thrill for acting in the plays at school. I grew out my hair. I started to wear makeup to make myself be noticed. I acted like I was in control of everything and everyone should do what I want. And what a brat I was.

I didn't care about family or about anything much. All I wanted was my dream to be a great actress like my mom. I knew how to get my dad to stop lecturing me by using the same words my mom would use when they fought, "There's nothing to talk about!" It always worked. But after sometime I realized I wasn't getting the attention I wanted.

No one asked me out on dates even though my step-mom insisted, "You should have dates at your age." I didn't have many friends, only my dog. I would hear my step-mom cry to my dad at nights some time about my behavior to her, "She treats me like an evil stepmother no matter what I do." It was true. I believed her to be an evil stepmother. She took my dad away from me, or so I thought then.

Then the baby came. They wanted to teach me responsibility. I hated it then. I was on my way to my dream. I couldn't stand that they couldn't understand that! Every weekend I was stuck with my half-brother. It really wasn't that bad but it wasn't what I wanted.

How foolish I was then. I was angry. So angry at my dad, my stepmom, and my mom for making me live here instead of with her. I took out this anger out on my baby brother. I offered him up to the goblins not truly believing they would come but wishing it all the same. I was surprised that they did and took my brother. That's when my "normal" life became completely turned around.

I had an adventure that was even bigger than any dreams could have imagined. Not only did I learn that I was more than my actress mother's daughter. I was something she was not. I could charm those I wanted but also become a friend.

Even when Hoggle said, "I never had a friend before," I too silently shared that realization. He was a true friend. Nothing like the ones at my school who I realized later only seem to be friends with me because of my mother. I had made a handful of friends in the Labyrinth.

I didn't want to abandon my brother like my mother abandoned me. That's how I won. It wasn't because I was clever though that may have had a small hand in it. It gave me determination to get through this hardship. So through hardships unnumbered and dangers untold I fought my way to the Castle beyond the Goblin City to take back the child that the goblins have stolen.

Now that I won and realize my own flaws I am a better person. I miss my friends from the Labyrinth. They only visited me once. Though I do know I am never truly alone.

I realized it wasn't my dad's, my mom's or even my step-mother's fault in what I did. It was all mine and mine alone. I started to look forward to babysitting on the weekends. I started acting like I didn't rule the world. I treated people like I wanted to be treated.

Eventually I got true friends and even dates. I went to college not to study acting that was my dream but to become an advisor to teens which was my new dream.

I am in my final year and getting ready to embark on another adventure. This one is a much overdo trip to visit my mother.

I dread it and am thrilled about it all at the same time. Yet I can't shake the feeling that there is more to this trip than meets the eye. That something else is going to happen. I don't know what it is but my feet are ready.