Day 107 – Bless The Darkness

I have my eyes closed as I’m typing this. It’s been a really challenging day. A really challenging week.

I did a lot. Today I did a table read for one of my scripts. It’s where people sit around a table and I assign them characters in the script and we all read it out loud. The people who were at the table read were all professional writers, most of whom have sold at least one movie and/or are employed in the entertainment industry right now. After we read the script out loud, everyone gives notes. They ripped my script apart. I mean, they were just talking about me like I wasn’t even there…

One thing I noticed, though. We usually spend about 15 to 20 minutes talking about a script, but they literally spent an hour discussing mine. Everyone had extreme opinions: either they really really loved it and thought it could be a “powerful and epic movie” or they just really didn’t like it at all. I think it’s a good thing when folks really have a strong opinion about your work. It means you are at least touching something in them… But man, they hurt my feelings. I have a way to go before I can express what is in my head on paper in a way that my message is clear to anyone who reads it…. Like, I’m not as good as I want to be yet and I’m actually going to have to learn new things, do research and use parts of my brain that have been atrophied for years to get to the place I know I’m going to be. I think this particular script could be a powerful and epic movie as well, and thanks to my writers group I know the elements that need strengthening. Now the daunting part is figuring out how to improve the things that I know aren’t working.

Can I tell you for a moment what I did this week? I went on a fifteen hour bus ride to a deserted town to meet up with Dream Lover. And then I took a fifteen hour bus ride back home. I learned what the term “oxy cotton” means, because that is how folks described this town. When I got back in LA, I found out that my sis had violated a living agreement that we had. Sometime in the midst of my bus ride I almost fainted because I was so anxious about what would/wouldn’t happen between me and Dream Lover.  My head was buzzing and I felt like throwing up. I literally had to sit there and count my breaths and drink some water to keep from passing out…

I came back to LA feeling disillusioned and disappointed. Some of my “friends” showed that they were happy about the idea of me not having the love of my dreams. After all, they thought it was too good to be true. Surprisingly, I wasn’t interested in laying on the bed or sleeping. I wasn’t even interested in making myself busy, although I did go and hang out with a few people. I wasn’t interested in yelling at my sister or being fake with the hater friends or crying or not crying. It’s just like everything stopped. I realized that I had been creating my life around the prospect of being with Dream Lover for some time, whether consciously or unconsciously. I always thought that one day he would come. He would be perfect. I even kept a really nice bar of soap in the closet for him. I thought that we would leave this town and travel together and build and create stuff all around the world together and I wouldn’t have to worry about Love or sex or anything of that anymore because I would finally have my man. I even imagined what song we would dance to on our wedding date and what our kids might look like…. I had this whole fantasy that was based upon us having a life together and all of a sudden, that fantasy was gone.

I didn’t curse God. I lashed out at some of my stupid hater “friends” for wishing me bad, but I didn’t really even care about them either… I just felt so empty. Like, what am I going to do now? I asked God for help and answers, but I wasn’t hearing anything. And it seemed like my most negative, pessimistic, horribly unhappy “friends” kept calling me to tell me “yep. I told you life and people suck”… I stopped answering their phone calls, and I’ve been in a bit of a daze this week. I stopped feeling sorry for myself. Not on purpose, but just because I really didn’t have the energy.

I sat down and prayed even though I couldn’t feel any connection at first…. And it started yesterday. I woke up after having so many magnificent dreams. In one of them I was a bear running free and I actually woke up singing a song about freedom (which I promptly penned). Then today I went to my writer’s meeting. They bashed my script and encouraged me at the same time. I came home and received two messages from females essentially wanting to be friends. One of my hater friends texted me to ask me about Dream Lover and he was so rude. I finally just told him to stop it already and he did.

And then, as I was sitting on my bed, I could feel it. I wish I could explain this feeling to you. Let me try. You see, I was so heartbroken about Dream Lover that I couldn’t see or feel anything good. But for just a few moments this evening, I saw everything and everything was good. I did not see the ending. I did not see how things would turn out. I didn’t really have any answers but I felt connected to something so sweet, something so safe. I felt safe, like no matter what happens, I’m not going to break. I felt and I still feel that I don’t have to be sad. Something in my mind has changed and despair just isn’t an option anymore. Life is the only option. Do you get it? It’s either life or life or death and it really doesn’t matter what happens on the outside. New friends don’t seem so daunting anymore… Well… Okay a little bit but I’m still going to go with it.

I realize that I have been afraid of girl friends because I thought that once they get to know me, they will see all of my issues and they won’t want to be my friend anymore, but after sitting on this Greyhound bus to nowhere land and listening to all the issues all those folks have and seeing how they still have friends, I figure I really can’t be that bad. And this is why they say bless the darkness. Because in the darkest nights we are given the opportunity to use other faculties to see, rather than our limited vision. We learn to trust and exercise faith in our hardest moments. We listen more keenly. We can smell what is good and bad and we know when not to answer the phone.

God, you have taken me so many places and today I bless it all. I bless it all and call it good. Ameen.

Day 107

Bless The Darkness