I left my last entry with a question: What the hell do I want anyway? And I'm not writing again tonight because I think I suddenly have an answer. Actually, I have a lot more questions.
Somewhere along the way I started to give up on this dream again. I don't know what it was, the trouble of making it come true, the culture shock of giving up a really comfortable lifestyle for the chance to have no money and nowhere to park, the question of what to do with my piano in the meantime... in any case, I've been heading for a different life over the past few months than the life I was heading for this time last year. And that was fine, until this weekend.
Last night I wrote about Monsters vs Aliens. And all at once the life I was trying to achieve - owning a house, getting a steady programming job in Nebraska or Colorado, doing my own work on the side - suddenly it was beyond dull. I hated it. I felt like I was settling again, giving up on myself.
I don't know what this means. Maybe it's good that I'm too busy right now to make any real plans. Or maybe things keep NOT working out because I'm not looking in the right direction to begin with. I started to think, why did seeing that movie put me in such a funk? I actually felt angry today. I wasn't angry at my friends in the business or the industry for being so hard to get into, I think I was angry at myself. And angry at all the people whose lives would be made easier if I just stayed close to home. Believe me, there's a lot of family in that category.
They would be supportive though, no matter what I do. If it's what I really want to do, and if it made me happy, they would be supportive. They're not the problem. I'm the problem.
All this time I've been thinking, when I die I want to be able to say, I did that. I tried that, I worked on that movie, I was there. And all this time I've been thinking, that's not enough to actually do it, as big a move as it is, for so little money and security. Wanting to be able to say I did it just isn't a good enough reason to do something that huge. But what if it is?
A couple of months ago I was called by a recruiter at Dreamworks, and I pretty much blew that off. I was already committed on my current project, I didn't know when it was going to end, and I didn't want to get pigeonholed into doing one little task over and over and over again as a career. But I wrote down her name and number anyway. And I still have it. I was pretty sure I was going to blow that off for good but for some reason, I kept it. And now it's sitting right next to me in front of my clock radio. That means something. I guess something inside me isn't ready to give up yet.
I guess the idea wouldn't be nearly so cool if it wasn't so hard to achieve. I never was one to do anything the easy way. But I really want to keep the piano. I hope I can keep the piano. I really do.
Somewhere along the way I started to give up on this dream again. I don't know what it was, the trouble of making it come true, the culture shock of giving up a really comfortable lifestyle for the chance to have no money and nowhere to park, the question of what to do with my piano in the meantime... in any case, I've been heading for a different life over the past few months than the life I was heading for this time last year. And that was fine, until this weekend.
Last night I wrote about Monsters vs Aliens. And all at once the life I was trying to achieve - owning a house, getting a steady programming job in Nebraska or Colorado, doing my own work on the side - suddenly it was beyond dull. I hated it. I felt like I was settling again, giving up on myself.
I don't know what this means. Maybe it's good that I'm too busy right now to make any real plans. Or maybe things keep NOT working out because I'm not looking in the right direction to begin with. I started to think, why did seeing that movie put me in such a funk? I actually felt angry today. I wasn't angry at my friends in the business or the industry for being so hard to get into, I think I was angry at myself. And angry at all the people whose lives would be made easier if I just stayed close to home. Believe me, there's a lot of family in that category.
They would be supportive though, no matter what I do. If it's what I really want to do, and if it made me happy, they would be supportive. They're not the problem. I'm the problem.
All this time I've been thinking, when I die I want to be able to say, I did that. I tried that, I worked on that movie, I was there. And all this time I've been thinking, that's not enough to actually do it, as big a move as it is, for so little money and security. Wanting to be able to say I did it just isn't a good enough reason to do something that huge. But what if it is?
A couple of months ago I was called by a recruiter at Dreamworks, and I pretty much blew that off. I was already committed on my current project, I didn't know when it was going to end, and I didn't want to get pigeonholed into doing one little task over and over and over again as a career. But I wrote down her name and number anyway. And I still have it. I was pretty sure I was going to blow that off for good but for some reason, I kept it. And now it's sitting right next to me in front of my clock radio. That means something. I guess something inside me isn't ready to give up yet.
I guess the idea wouldn't be nearly so cool if it wasn't so hard to achieve. I never was one to do anything the easy way. But I really want to keep the piano. I hope I can keep the piano. I really do.
