Monday, December 13, 2010

Pathetic

Life gets better and better. Over the long haul. I mean the looooooooong haul. But in between it sucks. It sucks between the neurons. It sucks like gunk between your toes. It's uphill. You're blind AND deaf. At best you see those 3 feet in front of you like you are walking through life with a flashlight.
Hey it's better than total darkness, right? But it's still just a flashlight. You will not be able to fight off a jaguar in the rainforest with a flashlight.
Not that you have the first idea of how to fight off a jaguar.
Not like you're even in the rainforest. But it sure as hell feels like it.

How do you start a relationship this way?

Openness and trust takes on a life-or-death kind of feeling. Or perhaps I'm simply neurotic as fuck.

Perhaps it's the new birth control.

My daughter said, in response to me dating someone new and thereby reinforcing my no longer being with her father, "You had your chance at love."

She simply picked up on me and this guy's togetherness on a field trip (so did her teacher) and confronted me. She's mad. She's sad.
It makes me wonder.
I can at least console her by saying, "I will not be getting married ever." And then I hear myself say to her, "and I already told him that."
What kind of fucking conversation is this to be having with your ten year old?
And did I tell him that?
And who is him?
Him that is running ramshod through my life. Who is he? What's he mean to me? Why does he so suddenly mean so much?

I had to tell the ex-dh of course. Cause the ten year old can't tell him. And she will. And that's cool. Telling him is infuriating of course. And then there's a call from the principal's office. Molly's melting down.

This thing that's happening; it is page one of a thousand page book but okay, let's spill the beans. Let's face the music. In the words of Good Morning America's Advice Guru, "Let's make room for love."

Tonight and last night and even today, I felt sick of not knowing.
I felt sick of people hurting.
I realized how really bad I am at playing games.
Especially the dirty ones my mind is fooling with.

I want to know. I want to be sure. I want Certainty to be my middle name.
Is it so far from Audacity?

I want to smoke in bed.
I want to trade myself in for a new me.

I wonder why I'm in my pajamas drinking wine out of a plastic cup.

I want to reach you. I want to invest. I want you to rush in. I want you to convince me. I want you to commit while I squirm away.

I want you to see my worth. I want you to ravage me.

It's all about me pretty much.

I want to give up when it gets hard. I want to pull off the scab and make you eat it. I feel like quitting already. What was I thinking??????????????

Sylvia Plath never used fourteen exclamation points in a row.

I feel like I'm risking so much. Are there returns? For real? Are there? I'm not seeing it. But I smell self-sabotage. It smells like burnt hair in here. Why can't I enjoy myself? Cause really, what about this ISN'T ENJOYABLE?

Fear. Complications. Revelations. Insecurity. Embarrassing reveals. Sudden intimacy. Stumbles, Escalation, Love, Rush, Wait, Wonder.

It sucks being alone but it's easier. You know you get used to lethargy. That's the definition of it. You think, life will just be like this now.

But I DID NOT want that life. Page one is a good place to start. In fact, we may have gotten to page two tonight.

"Oh dear, out here.
Everybody stumbles on fear.
Who cares if we're scared?
Everyone is on there own."
Brandi Carlile
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SDpZrLciCE&feature=autofb

Saturday, December 4, 2010

Family of Man

We are a family of man. A tumble-torn, bruised and damaged lot. Our original sin is held in the heart, in its fragility, its ability to break, its inability to heal. We are handicapped by this organ that just wants to love.
We walk grey streets of remorse and denial, our motley pasts zipped into our packs. We walk alone although we are surrounded by people, our family. A family of brittle hearts. We struggle to communicate our love and longing and loneliness but share easily our pain and anger and frustration. Frustration at our inability to shape our lives into what we want them to be. Frustration that things don't work out the way we want them to. Frustration that people aren't what we need them to be. Frustration that the road is steep and long.
There's so much we have to work for. To fight for. To struggle for.
To gamble for.
We must extend ourselves, risk our joy, play our shitty hand, toss in our glass hearts, our flimsy souls.
I keep looking for a guarantee of happiness like it's a star in the damn sky somewhere.
I keep thinking that pain will recede yet it returns like a tide.
I keep hoping that I will overcome my faults and insecurities. I will stop stepping in the same potholes, the ones I swore I patched up.
But there are so many cracks in the infrastructure.

Consequently, I lean heavy on the power of prayer.
I pray for eyes open and raw and seeing. I pray that the blinders of my upbringing, my race, my sex, my expectations fall away even if it makes it a Visine kind of day. Because I so much want to see YOU. To see your experience, your heart, your raw and open eyes looking in mine.
I pray for ease. I pray that I don't make things harder than they have to be. I pray that the incline abates. That I get out of God's way. That my pain-popping ego stays in its place and stops dancing all over my primal wounds. That I don't become hard-edged and pessimistic. That I don't court rain when I need a clear blue sky. That I have faith in the universe's merciful leaning toward equilibrium.
I pray for quick lessons. As much as I want this journey to be grief-free, it seems impossible. There are dues to be paid. You must ante in to play. But when the darkness does come, I pray I learn what I need to learn quickly. And I wish the same for you.
You know what they recommend when you're going through hell.
Keep going. It's the only way out.
Be brave. Have courage. Face your fears. Bet your heart. And keep going.

Friday, October 1, 2010

Best Revenge - Live Well

My parents moved a few times when I was in elementary school. Starting a new school was never easy and at one time they even moved me in the middle of the school year but the worst move by far was at the beginning of seventh grade. When I arrived at St. Anne's Catholic School I did not have a uniform and for some reason all the stores were sold out for the year so I had to wear "church clothes" which my parents saw fit to have my GRANDMOTHER make for me. Peter Pan collars. Split princess sleeves. Boxy heathered pastel vests with matching skirts hemmed mid-calf. I have no hesitation in telling you these clothes were hideous.
I was un-liked. And by seventh grade standards for very good reason.
But still, they didn't just not like me, they hated me. It was their job. Spitballs in my hair. Tripped in the hallway. Boys would gag when I walked by. The girls were the most brutal if only because they ignored me but because I wanted to be their friend so bad. I missed my friends at my old home.
Now at the school I had left, I was class president so this was a very long way to fall in the social strata. I just didn't get it.
The girls and boys hated me equally. They would cram into a single table at lunch so as to not have to sit at the same table as me. They would pass invitations to a party by my desk saying, "could you pass that over. there's not one for you." There was no shame in their dislike. I simply wasn't included. But like anything weak, it's an easy target. And after a while the games began. Boys would pretend to like me but when I started to trust them and made any move to reciprocate they would laugh in my face and shout, "As if!" (The game was called "As if.")
I had one friend, a lone wolf who had been bullied for years by these kids and she was kind enough to take me under her wing. But notes would circulate with she and I doing things to each other with the words "Lesbos" above it. We were even physically shoved around, especially on the stairs where we could potentially fall and hurt ourselves. Even teachers got in on the act. Hey, they want to be popular too. By eighth grade, I was pretty low and depressed. It's hard to admit but I had given up on myself. I remember wearing my hair in a ponytail and for days on end not bothering to take it out when I bathed and wearing that same ponytail every day without brushing it out. I just didn't care. Nothing mattered. I was hated and there was nothing I could do about it. I was even kind of designing myself in their image, rather than my own. And THAT'S WHEN IT HAPPENED. When a ray of self-awareness shined in and I deemed to wonder: why? Why did these people hate me when they didn't even know me? I was worthless I would sigh to myself, no doubt looking at my greasy ponytail. Plain and simple. And the ray of light faded.
One day, a teacher asked me to take something to the nurse's office but when I got to where I thought her office was it wasn't there and I couldn't find her new office and I hesitated going back to the classroom cause I knew I would be humiliated so I kept looking and next thing you know all this time had gone by and I'd made it so much worse on myself. I had no choice but to go back and explain what had taken so long and why I had not even completed the task which the teacher made me do in front of the class. She chastised me for being stupid and irresponsible and on and on and everyone laughed. She said she would send someone else with "half a brain in their head" but I begged her to just tell me where the new office was and I would complete my task correctly. I was desperate to get out of that room. Hot tears were about to fall and I had yet to let them see me cry.
She let me go and I hightailed it to the stairwell and collapsed in tears on those dusty linoleum stairs. And there for no good reason I had one of the biggest epiphanies of my entire life. And thankfully, it's never let me down.
I sat on those steps, crying, complaining inside: why don't they like me? They don't even know me? I've never even done anything to them. They don't even know me and they hate me.
They don't even know me and they hate me.

They don't even know me and they hate me.

They don't even know me and they hate me.

That was it. They are going to hate me no matter what. So why am I trying so hard to please them...to get in their good graces? Why am I bending myself into a smiling, pleasing, pleading, greasy freak when they will NEVER like me. They don't even know me. No matter who I am, they will hate me, so therefore, I AM FREE. I am free to be me. To be whatever me I want. THEY are trapped. I would watch the lowest among them, clinging to the underbelly of their popularity, desperate to maintain it. But I had no such need. I was free to be AS ME as I wanted to be.
And high school was 6 months away and there EVERYONE would be starting a new school. Many kids would come from far and near and they would all get to meet a new Erin. The real Erin. The true Erin. Like me, hate me...I don't care. I am free. And I am me.
I started immediately with my friend to remake ourselves and by freshman year our old classmates didn't know who we were. And by the following year, I was a free and happy new waver with wacked out hair and a wacked out wardrobe. I was not that girl who wore split sleeves and pastel dresses. I was a girl with a shit load of friends and a shit load of self-respect. I just had to cross over.
As they say, the best revenge is to live well.
Bullies act out of their own sadness and frustration and weakness. Most of my old classmates weren't even aware they were "bullying" me (we're friends on facebook ;-)
I think it might be easier and more effective to educate kids on how to react to bullying rather than trying to end bullying.
And maybe sharing stories of overcoming bullying will help kids learn how not to let someone else's opinion change how you view yourself. Respond instead by becoming more yourself. Don't hide. Don't be ashamed. You might even end up inspiring the bullies to break out of their fear, their cliques, their misunderstanding of how life really works and allow them to see their own path, worry about their own lives and become who they really are...FREE from influence. Accepted by yourself. Led by your own star. Deeply loved.

Thursday, August 5, 2010

Any Way You Slice It

First off: you and I both wish this were shorter. But it is what it is. ;-) Thanks for bearing witness.

I want to tell you a story. A funny story. A story I hope you’ll find funny. A story I hope to continue to find funny.

My friend Soph and I wonder if we enjoy our foibles too much and that’s why we have so many, so consistently! As believers in the law of attraction we hold that that which we give energy to persists. And if positive energy is the most attractive energy, it would stand to reason that if we find enjoyment in our problems perhaps more will come to us.

Of course I don’t know that we really believe this but the important thing is we all have our things we attract. Our issues. Our baggage. Perhaps ME more than others (as you might be convinced of at the end of this story) but, rest assured, and I do, we all got SOMETHING. Here’s mine du jour. May your life feel a little better in comparison.

Almost a month ago, my transmission went out on my 2002 RAV4. It took the mechanic over a week to fix and it cost a buttload of money. Too much I thought, but I had my car…which I need. As you all know, I’m a single mom and I drive all over this great city for my landscaping job and I need a car. Unfortunately, after a day of having my car back I realized it was not fixed. It drove the exact same, dangerous, herky-jerky way so I took it back and in a not-great mood. The guy fixing my car loaned me his car so I would not have to rent a car again. This car.
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My gangster box. Of course, I appreciate not having to rent a car but this car is not great for transporting landscaping equipment as my SUV was. But that’s not so much of an issue cause I’m pretty much not working in August. My kids are out of camp and their father is on vacation and working for the entire month so I’m on my own with the kids this month.
Now I’ve been prepping for this month of August. I knew it would be challenging. No work means no money. And being with the kids 100% means no breaks and that’s just what August is. August to me is like December without Christmas. However, my long-awaited vacation will be coming in September and the kids will be back at school. All will be well. Nothing to do but muscle through, right?

Well…then the ex drops the bomb that I would not be able to take my September vacation as things were changing at his work and he wouldn’t be able to take the time off. (This being the day before he left for his two-week vacation.) AND he would not be able to take the kids overnight as he was going to have to be at work earlier. When he dropped this bomb I had to just turn and walk away cause I was not going to let him see me cry. The god-damned pressure of being a single mom/provider/human being is so, so intense. I need that fucking vacation. I need to live my life. I need to CREATE my life. I’m beyond frustrated.

The next morning my neck goes right out. Like…OUT. The pain runs down the back of my head, through both sides of my neck and down my left shoulder. I can barely drive my kids to their physicals at the doctor that morning (the gangster box does not have power steering). Since, I simply did not have the time or money to hit the chiro I call Soph and she reads to me from Louise Hays’ book Heal Your Life and the basic affirmation is about the need to be FLEXIBLE. (no, really? ;-) The affirmation goes: “I am at peace with my life,” and I say it over and over and over and I’m reminded that morning that I am blessed with super healthy kids and a wonderful pediatric practice and in the end I heal myself. My body tells me I should probably do some yoga that night but I think I just end up drinking beer and watching The Bachelorette.

Next day, I get a letter saying my dishwasher has been recalled (It could burst into flames!) and Maytag will only refund me my money if I buy one of their high-end dishwashers. Whatever, right? Be flexible. I’m at peace with my life. So I get someone to watch the kids and I head out the next morning in my gangster box to Sears to buy a god-damn dishwasher.

Let me stop here for some juicy backstory. Since separating from my ex, I have had five car accidents and gotten four moving violations - in two and half years. Prior to that I had gotten a total of two tickets my entire life and never been at fault for an accident. Things change. So after my fourth moving violation I got this letter from the DMV.
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I would like to say in my defense, that (at the writing of this letter) I had never ever CAUSED a crash. So that first sentence is just not true. I feel that’s about as far as I can defend myself however. I had a little fender bender after that and before that I totaled my car by hydroplaning and crashing into a tractor trailer on the freeway but the truck didn’t even stop so that’s hardly causing a crash.

Let me also tell you that when I went to see a psychic last year, she said that I had some trouble with cars and accidents and I said yes. And she said I had a special guardian angel that had been protecting me through many lifetimes (What up. Gerome?) and she said that I kept him very busy. I told her to tell him that I was sorry about that and so she kind of mentally went away and came back and said, “Gerome says it’s okay. You were the same way on a horse.” Funniest line uttered by a psychic ever. Anyhoo…

A few months ago I got pulled over for speeding. A whole ten miles over the speed limit. I’m a menace I tell you. Luckily it had been long enough between tickets and I could take the traffic school option. Of course you have to “pay off” the DMV to keep a point off your license so that added $150 to my $350 ticket. Yeah. Awesome.

So back to our story: I’m at Sears and I get this big run around (they want to charge me to pull a permit for installing a dishwasher?) and I leave very frustrated and without a dishwasher. As I pull out of the mall parking lot I hear sirens behind me. I pull over to let the cop pass and he yells at me to pull through the next light and pull over. No. Fucking. Way. You know, maybe I have a tail light out. I mean this isn’t even my car. Wait. I don’t even have the registration. I don’t even know my mechanic’s last name. Uh. Oh.

So the cop claims I ran a stop sign IN THE MALL PARKING LOT which is not even true and he and I argue back and forth but then I have to start explaining about the car not being mine and now it’s “let’s step out of the car.” I TOTALLY LOSE IT. Yep. I’m one of those folks standing outside her mechanic’s car, crying on the side of the road while the cops writes me a ticket and threatens to impound the car. I sign for my ticket (not an admission of guilt, I’m assured), pull my shit together and go on my way with the knowledge that I am going to have to go stand before a judge in Chatsworth and plead my case just to keep my license. Holy Shitstorm Batman.

That’s Sunday.

Monday. I decide to get Molly a cell phone. Her father doesn’t tend to carry his and sometimes I’m not sure where she is when she’s with him so I like the idea of being able to contact her when I want to. And then I can cancel my home phone service which is still under the ex’s name and is inundated 10 -15 times a day by creditors. Molly’s thrilled and I’m up for a free Blackberry upgrade so we are ALL happy campers. We go back home, I spend 45 minutes on the phone using a “man’s” voice, pretending to be my ex canceling my phone service. I get the service cancelled, plug in my new phone to my computer and proceed to wipe out EVERY CONTACT I have on it. Somehow the software or whatever replaced everything on my phone with the contents of my computer address book which I only use to keep about 700 email addresses for Molly’s school and La Leche League. I jump on the internet to figure out what the hell I’d done and realize that I’ve knocked out my internet. My DSL was attached to my fucking home phone line! I have erased all my contacts and snuffed out my access to the internet in less than an hour’s time.

I really wish I could say to you that I did not have a giant, big-ass pity party for myself that began with the thought: if I had a HUSBAND to help me with this shit, none of this would be happening. Cause that’s an unfriendly road, my friends. And I don’t want to take you down it.

So Jana comes over and takes my kids so I can put out the fine china for the pity party. I go down to Verizon and they are gigantic losers and can’t help me and I just have to bear it. It’s a hassle. They are all just hassles. It’s a shit storm no doubt. But it’s not WHO I AM. It’s just crappy circumstances. That’s all.

I do finally listen that night and do yoga and meditate and read my inspirational books and get centered and make an appointment with my therapist. I hire a sitter to watch the kids all day the next day so I can go write and peace out and make things better in my life.

Monday.

Sitter comes. All’s lovely. I pack up my computer and put on makeup and look forward and upward. I get in the gangster box, start the car, pull away from the curb, my phone rings, I pick it up and hear:
WRRR WRRR WRRR WRRR.

I get pulled over on my own street.

My emotional state at this point kinda plummets. I really feel like there is a good chance I am living some other kind of parallel life. Like everyone else, I saw Inception and loved it. Loved the idea of the totem a lot and in fact, walking out of the theater after seeing the movie, I found a pendant in the pocket of my jeans. It’s a pendant my friend Anne got me. I have no idea what it was doing in my pocket but I decided to make it my totem and I enjoyed rubbing it and touching it all day…communing with my totem. Keeping myself in the real world. Well I forget once again that my totem was in my jeans and I wash the totem in the jeans. I then discover the totem in the dryer…broken in two.
HOLY SHIT! That means, you realize, that for me and by the extremely realistic rules of Inception, this is all a dream?

Moral of the story: keep track of your stinkin totems.

So as soon as I realize I’m being pulled over, I turn off my phone and throw it on the floorboard. It’s total instinct. I actually have no memory of this exact moment. I’m piecing it together backwards like a police detective.
So the cop pulls me into a parking lot and walks up and says he’s citing me for talking on a “handheld device.” I mumble something. No idea what. Maybe, “okay.” What other response is there at this point. “Okay.”

I’ve really taken the path of least resistance now and have just gone numb. It’s safest. Then I realize I gotta explain about the car again and we go through all that somehow. He then asks me to sign for the ticket (…not an admission of guilt…) and I do and he stops and looks at the ticket and looks at my license and says to me, “It doesn’t look like you’ve signed the ticket the same way you signed your license.”
Now there’s a fucking handwriting quiz?
I kinda laugh and say, “I’m sorry. I’m a little upset.” (To say the least, right?) And he says, “Care to try again?” and hands me the ticket. I do try again but it’s no better and he lets me leave.
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MY BAD SIGNATURE

This is the beginning of my great day?
WHAT?
I get my bearings. Put my license away. And where is the damn phone? And I can’t find it. Anywhere. Okay. I start the car, drive away from the scene of the crime, relax myself somewhat and stop and look again. The phone is not there. I’m on my hands and knees looking everywhere and nothing. The phone is gone. The phone without the contacts. The phone that just got me pulled over (well, I didn’t do it…) THAT FUCKING PHONE. Nevertheless, I still need the fucking phone. But it’s just not there. Totem. Breaking.

So I drive to my friend’s house who lives nearby and to whom I know I can present myself in pretty much any state and she will have me. (This is true of all my friends actually. This is pretty much how I IDENTIFY my friends.)
I knock on her door and she’s happy to see me. She claps her hands and says, “I have a PRESENT for you!” She skips off and comes back with a beautiful bud in a baggy. “Humboldt!” she exclaims. I laugh and as good as it looks, I think, I’m probably the LAST person you want to give that to…

“Follow me,” I say. “I have a story to tell you.” I take her to my car and make her help me look for the cell phone and start filling her in. Thing is, neither of us can find it. We move the seats back and forth. We empty every bag in the car. We scratch our heads and look again. My friend slides her hand down between the bottom and back of the driver’s seat and all of the sudden, she pulls out a KNIFE. A knife that has been wedged in the seat and pointed at my back the entire time I have been driving this dude’s car!
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THE KNIFE.

We spend the better part of five minutes laughing our asses off. We send her kids for a flashlight and find the phone immediately. Right under the seat.

This knife has been literally stabbing me in the back. So there’s that. There’s your totem. Your law of attraction. Your poison arrow. Your affirmation.

And I’m glad that knife’s no longer there. Life has been calm (i.e. regular shit storm) but I keep hearing in my head the words that came to me when I was meditating that night as an explanation of current events: “To whom much is given, much is expected.”

I can translate this for myself in two ways: either I’m Spiderman (I do spend a lot of time around spiders), or my life needs to be much, much more than IPAs and The Bachelorette.

These days I feel bi-polar, caught between thoughts of suicide and the experience of transcendence. I feel close to God but mad at him. I want to be at peace with my life but I also want a peaceful life.

My friend Soph quoted our friend John Paul who said to her, “When the shit hits the fan you know you are in a sacred place.”

Guess for now, I’ll just go with that.

Nameste, bitches.
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Bad things come in threes.

Monday, January 11, 2010

It Needs To Be Different

My life is a big question mark and right next to the question mark is a big exclamation point. It’s all what if’s and man, I’m so fortunate and this is exciting but what am I doing's.
Cause I don’t know how to do it. This.
How do I move into this new phase? What’s the end game? What’s the exit strategy for stay-at-home moms? And, of course, my specialty: newly single stay-at-home moms? Now my situation is not SO different. It just shines the light on this problem a little brighter. All stay-at-home moms ask at some point: what am I equipped to do? Who is going to help me do this? What do I want to do? Can I even risk asking if it’s possible? Is there any other way?
And the kicker in my case is that the financial need for a job has crash-landed with my absolute need to pursue my dream job right now.
And this on top of the fact that I’m still 100% a mother. That doesn’t change. I’m needed in all the same ways. My chores and all the expectations are all still there. Now though there is so much more to do and worry about and achieve. It’s hard not to be a little resentful. I sit on my back stoop and I wonder.
Am I less a mother, am I less maternal, because I am ready to move on? Was I misrepresenting myself all these years?
Can a woman be more or less maternal? Or is maternal just maternal?
Something we’re born with. No more negotiable than our femininity. We’re female; we’re feminine. We’re mothers; we’re maternal.
Mothers, and women in general, get pigeon-holed this way all the time. Like the old Victorian chestnuts of needing to be lady-like and of being careful not to act like a man. How can I NOT be lady-like? And unless I’m wearing a fake moustache, how can I be ACTING like a man?
Quite honestly, I’m more than over it.
The double standard was present in my marriage and it’s present outside of it. It’s presently holding me back.
There are precious few paths to follow out of the forest.

What have women done in the past? How have they managed? What was the path of my foremothers? My guess is that that knowledge, that wisdom, has just not been considered valuable enough information to be passed on. What mothers do is invisible, un-rewarded and not just that, but suffering from a bad stomachache from all the trips up and down the ivory tower. Hard to climb in these high heels and lady-like dresses and acting like it’s all no big deal.
Golly gee, we could do it with our eyes closed.
It’s not that easy. It’s not easy at all. For anyone.
It’s shit work. Pretending it’s anything less diminishes it. And saying out loud that it’s a shit job doesn’t tarnish it. A surgeon with his hands up all’n up someone’s colon has a shit job too. It’s still a lovely vocation.
To not really look at moms through the lens of reality is to not see mothers as individuals. We’re not all going to do this the same way. No one’s life looks like anyone else’s. Moms are all connected by sleepless nights and wiped butts and a true understanding of the word “sacrifice”, but we are all different. Even within our distinct mommy war bunkers. The breastfeeding mom still loses her temper and gives her kids Doritos. The mom who brings home KFC every night makes her kids washes behind her kids’s ears religiously and never swears in front of them. That PTA President who thought she’d be a natural mother cries in the night wondering if she’s failing her kids.
For our own selves and the sake of future moms, we need to ease up. No one’s perfect at this. And God, it’s hard.
I know men struggle with the nature of masculinity, but it’s different. To become a mother is to change forever and never return to that other person, and not just inside, but in society’s eyes. You must re-make yourself in the public eye.
I don’t always feel ready for my life to change. I like the old routine. It’s familiar. And most of the time, I do not want to be apart from my kids. But my life is changing, forcibly, in so many ways. The push-pull right now is my biggest complaint. My neck flared up as I wrote that. Can’t seem to get anything DONE and I know that everyone feel that way, but I feel in caps that there is SO MUCH AT STAKE.
The pressure is INTENSE. And all I wanna do is write and make my show. That’s all that drives me. I am pretty much unhappy if I’m doing anything else.
I know, right now and forever, that I will fail at every venture that resides outside the scope of my greatest dream.
If this does not work out for me, if I don’t achieve my dream which I should stop calling “my dream” cause it makes it sound unreal and it is, in fact, very much here…if my reality doesn’t soon, very soon, begin to resemble the picture in my head than there is nothing in this world I understand. Nothing would make sense. Right now, serializing my life is the only thing that makes sense. I want to sit down in front of my computer, walk on a film set, hunker down in an editing bay…and never leave.