I guess the dam broke.
I hit a bottleneck around the beginning of October. Paul’s death had really made me think a lot about my life, about how short it is, and about what I really want. It made me think about what I want and then think again about what I had actually given myself permission to have. When I looked at it that way, it wasn’t as much as I thought.
I’ve been writing a lot about relationships lately because this is one of the things I thought the most about. As much as I have said in the past year or so that I was ready for another serious relationship, it turns out that I was carrying around some really old anger from my childhood that was holding me back from actually allowing myself to have it. I had never actually given myself permission to want it. I had only allowed myself to not want something casual and shallow, which left “serious” or “alone” as the default alternatives. I had been trying to live against what I didn’t want, instead of for what I did want.
That being said, it’s not something I’m desperate to have. I’m fine. I’m not in a hurry for it. I sleep better because no one is next to me snoring. I know exactly what’s in my refrigerator at all times. There’s nothing sticky on my bathroom floor because someone can’t aim in the dark and won’t turn on the light in the middle of the night. You get my drift.
And as much as I talk about all these projects I want to work on, I’m not sure I’ve given myself permission to do much of that either. Although I’m not convinced it’s a permission issue so much as an energy issue. I’ve been working very hard for the last few months at work learning how to be a lighter. It’s not as steep a curve as it could be after two years at DreamWorks, but it’s steep enough while keeping up with my regular job as a TA that I come home pretty worn out sometimes. And occasionally late. So more often than not, I find myself sitting there trying to decide which project is the most important, which one deserves what little time I have to spend on it at the expense of the others I want to work on. And I end up working on none of them because I can’t choose.
In fact, the only real creative pursuits I’ve allowed myself in the last year are piano and NaNoWriMo. It could be the fact that I’m paying for lessons that keeps me going to piano more than anything, although I always feel better about everything after I’ve practiced a couple of hours. I just never seem to remember that until I’m done.
All this valuable thinking, all these things I wanted out of my life were stuck behind a wall of anger for months, not coming out, not being written or talked about, not doing anything.
I remember the night Paul died, when I was driving home from my friend’s house in the city. It was very late. He didn’t want me to drive home but I insisted, because I needed to talk to Paul. And I needed to be in my own space, alone. I got in the car and the song playing was “They” by Jem. I had been playing the CD on the way out there, and it stopped in the middle of that song. When I started the car to leave, it hit me like a sack of bricks.
I’m sorry, so sorry
I’m sorry it’s like this
I said back, “You’d better be.” And on the way home, we had a talk.
I told him that I didn’t know how this grieving process was going to go, but I knew there was an anger stage coming. And I told him no matter how angry I got, ultimately we would be okay. But that it would probably happen and not to worry, because it wouldn’t last.
It did happen, but not the way I expected. As it turns out, I never got angry at him. I’m not angry at him. And I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m not going to be angry at him. I get why he did it. I get that he felt like he had no control over his life, his health, his future, and he hadn’t for a long time. This was the only way he could take control. To have any power at all.
But I definitely got mad. Not at Paul, but at the fact that I was dealing with it alone. That’s not to say I didn’t have friends. I have a lot of very supportive friends. But I had spent almost eight years in a serious relationship, where I was used to having that one person to run to whenever there was a tragedy. That one person you lean on the most, who knows you the best, who is there with you every day as you work your way through it, beginning to end. I was angry that something like this had happened and I didn’t have that to help get me through it.
That’s what got me started thinking about what I really want in my life and all the roadblocks I had created against it. By the time Christmas came, I had made a few good decisions, taken myself out of some unhealthy situations where I found myself chasing people who no longer had room in their lives for me, and put myself in better situations where I was able to make new friends and give something of myself. It was a good start. I had also written a script for a short animation about me and Paul. I finished it in late August, and then didn’t do anything else with it.
I was angry before I started the script, but I think I was more angry after I finished it. I didn’t know why for a long time. I started to see ways to remove some of those old roadblocks, but they weren’t easy. There’s something about taking yourself out of an unhealthy situation that is empowering and yet angering at the same time. You wish you didn’t have to do it. You wish you hadn’t been driven to walk out that door. And if you leave the door open, you have to get pretty far away from it before you stop being angry that no one followed you through it. Sometimes you have to get to where you can’t even see it anymore.
I always leave my doors open. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not, but I do.
My anger at going through all this alone eventually transformed into anger that I had to make myself even more alone before I could have what I really wanted. I understand why, I know it was the right thing. And I’m a lot better off not having to watch what goes on without me like some kind of forgotten spectator. But it was only today that I figured out what was making me feel stuck there, like nothing was ever going to change.
I had written this script for Paul, called Break. It’s a cyclical narrative, like a lot of my work back in grad school. The main character starts in a particular place, goes through some stuff, comes full circle back to the same place but better for the journey, ready to go on. Changed somehow, maybe just enough. Stronger, for sure. Sounds reasonable, right?
Except in this one, this little girl in a swimsuit and an inflatable floaty meets this giant, funny, gentle lifeguard wearing a funny mask and pulling an IV bag on a pole behind him. He leaves her to tend to the dam, but it’s leaking in too many places and out of control. The dam breaks and he’s taken away, only to reappear as an angel that lifts her above the deluge until it passes. She feels the loss after he leaves, shatters like a ceramic doll, and then reappears ready to bury the pieces in the sand and go on. She ends up better for it in the end, stronger, even with brand new water wings. But she still ends up alone.
Tonight I changed the ending. She buries the shattered pieces and smooths over the pile, when a large hand print appears in the sand. She puts her tiny hand in the print. And then another tiny hand is placed upon hers. She looks up and finds a boy sitting right in front of her, wearing his own floaty. A kindred spirit. Someone who will stay with her for the rest of her journey.
Now I think I can work on this. The dam broke for me over Christmas, when I finally stood in that place where Paul died, when I finally got mad enough over all I had lost, and I haven’t been able to stop writing since. I feel like now I’m starting to see a way out of the maze. I can’t say for sure that this will be the last entry for a while but it might be, because I think I know where I’m heading now. The anger is gone, and all the doors are still open, no matter how far I’ve walked away from them. I can still use all the friends I can get. I just have a lot of work to do.
I hit a bottleneck around the beginning of October. Paul’s death had really made me think a lot about my life, about how short it is, and about what I really want. It made me think about what I want and then think again about what I had actually given myself permission to have. When I looked at it that way, it wasn’t as much as I thought.
I’ve been writing a lot about relationships lately because this is one of the things I thought the most about. As much as I have said in the past year or so that I was ready for another serious relationship, it turns out that I was carrying around some really old anger from my childhood that was holding me back from actually allowing myself to have it. I had never actually given myself permission to want it. I had only allowed myself to not want something casual and shallow, which left “serious” or “alone” as the default alternatives. I had been trying to live against what I didn’t want, instead of for what I did want.
That being said, it’s not something I’m desperate to have. I’m fine. I’m not in a hurry for it. I sleep better because no one is next to me snoring. I know exactly what’s in my refrigerator at all times. There’s nothing sticky on my bathroom floor because someone can’t aim in the dark and won’t turn on the light in the middle of the night. You get my drift.
And as much as I talk about all these projects I want to work on, I’m not sure I’ve given myself permission to do much of that either. Although I’m not convinced it’s a permission issue so much as an energy issue. I’ve been working very hard for the last few months at work learning how to be a lighter. It’s not as steep a curve as it could be after two years at DreamWorks, but it’s steep enough while keeping up with my regular job as a TA that I come home pretty worn out sometimes. And occasionally late. So more often than not, I find myself sitting there trying to decide which project is the most important, which one deserves what little time I have to spend on it at the expense of the others I want to work on. And I end up working on none of them because I can’t choose.
In fact, the only real creative pursuits I’ve allowed myself in the last year are piano and NaNoWriMo. It could be the fact that I’m paying for lessons that keeps me going to piano more than anything, although I always feel better about everything after I’ve practiced a couple of hours. I just never seem to remember that until I’m done.
All this valuable thinking, all these things I wanted out of my life were stuck behind a wall of anger for months, not coming out, not being written or talked about, not doing anything.
I remember the night Paul died, when I was driving home from my friend’s house in the city. It was very late. He didn’t want me to drive home but I insisted, because I needed to talk to Paul. And I needed to be in my own space, alone. I got in the car and the song playing was “They” by Jem. I had been playing the CD on the way out there, and it stopped in the middle of that song. When I started the car to leave, it hit me like a sack of bricks.
I’m sorry, so sorry
I’m sorry it’s like this
I said back, “You’d better be.” And on the way home, we had a talk.
I told him that I didn’t know how this grieving process was going to go, but I knew there was an anger stage coming. And I told him no matter how angry I got, ultimately we would be okay. But that it would probably happen and not to worry, because it wouldn’t last.
It did happen, but not the way I expected. As it turns out, I never got angry at him. I’m not angry at him. And I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m not going to be angry at him. I get why he did it. I get that he felt like he had no control over his life, his health, his future, and he hadn’t for a long time. This was the only way he could take control. To have any power at all.
But I definitely got mad. Not at Paul, but at the fact that I was dealing with it alone. That’s not to say I didn’t have friends. I have a lot of very supportive friends. But I had spent almost eight years in a serious relationship, where I was used to having that one person to run to whenever there was a tragedy. That one person you lean on the most, who knows you the best, who is there with you every day as you work your way through it, beginning to end. I was angry that something like this had happened and I didn’t have that to help get me through it.
That’s what got me started thinking about what I really want in my life and all the roadblocks I had created against it. By the time Christmas came, I had made a few good decisions, taken myself out of some unhealthy situations where I found myself chasing people who no longer had room in their lives for me, and put myself in better situations where I was able to make new friends and give something of myself. It was a good start. I had also written a script for a short animation about me and Paul. I finished it in late August, and then didn’t do anything else with it.
I was angry before I started the script, but I think I was more angry after I finished it. I didn’t know why for a long time. I started to see ways to remove some of those old roadblocks, but they weren’t easy. There’s something about taking yourself out of an unhealthy situation that is empowering and yet angering at the same time. You wish you didn’t have to do it. You wish you hadn’t been driven to walk out that door. And if you leave the door open, you have to get pretty far away from it before you stop being angry that no one followed you through it. Sometimes you have to get to where you can’t even see it anymore.
I always leave my doors open. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not, but I do.
My anger at going through all this alone eventually transformed into anger that I had to make myself even more alone before I could have what I really wanted. I understand why, I know it was the right thing. And I’m a lot better off not having to watch what goes on without me like some kind of forgotten spectator. But it was only today that I figured out what was making me feel stuck there, like nothing was ever going to change.
I had written this script for Paul, called Break. It’s a cyclical narrative, like a lot of my work back in grad school. The main character starts in a particular place, goes through some stuff, comes full circle back to the same place but better for the journey, ready to go on. Changed somehow, maybe just enough. Stronger, for sure. Sounds reasonable, right?
Except in this one, this little girl in a swimsuit and an inflatable floaty meets this giant, funny, gentle lifeguard wearing a funny mask and pulling an IV bag on a pole behind him. He leaves her to tend to the dam, but it’s leaking in too many places and out of control. The dam breaks and he’s taken away, only to reappear as an angel that lifts her above the deluge until it passes. She feels the loss after he leaves, shatters like a ceramic doll, and then reappears ready to bury the pieces in the sand and go on. She ends up better for it in the end, stronger, even with brand new water wings. But she still ends up alone.
Tonight I changed the ending. She buries the shattered pieces and smooths over the pile, when a large hand print appears in the sand. She puts her tiny hand in the print. And then another tiny hand is placed upon hers. She looks up and finds a boy sitting right in front of her, wearing his own floaty. A kindred spirit. Someone who will stay with her for the rest of her journey.
Now I think I can work on this. The dam broke for me over Christmas, when I finally stood in that place where Paul died, when I finally got mad enough over all I had lost, and I haven’t been able to stop writing since. I feel like now I’m starting to see a way out of the maze. I can’t say for sure that this will be the last entry for a while but it might be, because I think I know where I’m heading now. The anger is gone, and all the doors are still open, no matter how far I’ve walked away from them. I can still use all the friends I can get. I just have a lot of work to do.
