Previously, on LOST in LA

One year ago, I was sitting on a bus dreaming of taking a real vacation. I looked out at the people on the street, wondering why I wasn't in my car singing to the soundtrack of RENT, calling family or friends on the way to who knows where. I was sitting in someone else's space, not quite relaxed, subliminally unsatisfied and just going along hoping that things could change by themselves. While some things haven't changed, I am in a different space right now.

A week ago, I wrote the following unfinished sliver of thought:

Friday, May 11th, 2007, 11:18am
As I sit here between two buildings and about 2,000 people working under oppressive fluorescent lights, I wonder why I'm the only one sitting out here. Maybe it was the spreadsheet that had me going cross-eyed. Maybe it's the glimpse of the outside world from the edge of my cubicle. Maybe it's simply that perpetual ache in my heart that constantly wants, searches, needs something real.
Ahh, there it is. That's what is happening just underneath the surface, the surprising and recurring theme that defines my perpetual sadness. It doesn't mean that I'm never happy; I'm just defining one note in the symphony that is always there. It's my soundtrack.

Yup, you saw it correctly. That's how my handwriting translates through typing when I write at the office. It's Courier New from a world that forgets about people until they become a problem.

So I still flow like water around everything and hardly stay still, and when I get my head screwed on straight before I go to bed, I wake up the following morning completely disinterested in the past. This is especially easy when I've exhaled a whole week like this one, watching it slip by because it was dominated by work and automation. I am not sitting on a bus; I'm going my own way, and that includes a vacation to the Yucatan peninsula in 13 days. I sang all the way home from work (and the gym) today, and I'm not so concerned at this point with whom is along for the ride. Everybody in this city seems to be tumbling in their own bubble, and the whole thing from a distance must look like a huge carbonated novelty aquarium.

13 days, and I'm on my own schedule, sitting on a cruise ship with my sister and turning my gaze from the rear view mirror towards the Mayan ruins poking over the tree line. I'm going to clear my mind, relax my body, and open my eyes to the new direction I have to take when I return. Once again, it's time to turn over the topsoil and see what grows.

Sometimes, to find your way around, you have to get out and come back in.

Brainsqualling

I have a writing exercise that helps me when all other thoughts of story structure or creative wandering lead me to a sad little stump in the road. I make lists. I do it to pass the time, I do it to avoid making a trip right to the center of what I'm feeling, so...wait...that's significant. What am I avoiding? (Sometimes the words come out so quickly I get surprised by things I write after I read them.)

Okay, maybe that has to simmer for a little bit. I...uhh...where was I? Oh, lists. Yes. I make lots of lists. Among the crazy, stupid things I make lists about, I occasionally use them to empty my mind when I'm in transition.

So I asked myself, can I name ten lessons that life is trying to teach me? This is what I came up with:

1) If you have to say something important, say it and then let it go

2) Second chances are overrated and third chances are just plain dumb

3) Sometimes people are truly unaware of their actions, and sometimes they're just unaware of the consequences. Most of the time, they're only focused on the benefits.

4) Apathy and indifference are in style right now, but they're the plastic cup of friendship; They're convenient, stackable, and completely disposable.

5) If you don't believe in compromise, you can either hold on to your principles or you can hold on to your friends, but not both at the same time.

6) Life is too short to settle for spending time doing things you don't like doing.

7) You can't blame people for wanting to use you for the things you CAN do instead of the things you WANT to do. That's their limitation, not yours, and you have an endless supply of the word "no" at your disposal.

8) People will fight for the freedom of stupidity, and they have a right to that. For example, George Bush was elected TWICE.

9) 99% of everyone out there will not care about the details you obsess about, so make them count for you.

10) Try as much as you can to get the world around you to conform to your rules, but know that people will not change. They'll twist and contort slightly to fit around you, but sooner or later they'll snap back to the person you should have seen and accepted in the first place.

11) Never limit yourself to ten.

12) If you reach for something or someone and you get denied or ignored, don't lose faith in the action. You are merely a key looking for a lock.

I suppose the real question at this point is whether or not these are too big for fortune cookies. Okay, this isn't quite like the other lists I've made, but this is all about brain maintenance.

Now what is that other current I very nearly tapped into?

Every day I wake up in my own bed with the belief that there are very real people out there somewhere. I know it's true; I know a couple of people who are genuine, responsible, empathetic people. Why I don't spend more time with them is beyond me. Somehow I find myself trying to gain the trust of people who fall short of being completely open, people who can't participate in a human exchange of thoughts and feelings honestly and with great care. Okay, before I even get into this....

I acknowledge the fact that I'm extremely open and at times reactive, that I will call out behavior and say things at any given moment because they occur to me (that may be the training as an actor - it really transforms you). I have an almost unfiltered connection to my instincts yet at the same time I'm trying to figure out why I find myself in the ripple effect of people whose least favorite subject is any bad reflection of themselves. I think I'm trying to begin with accountability, the knowledge that I sometimes have unrealistic expectations of people who can't measure up to those precious few whom I can always count on. I make the decisions to care about and stand close to the wrong people. I did it for nearly twelve years with one person. I have to accept blame for that.

But I'm already involved. And I will be here again. When you train for years to be sensitive to behavior, to make the other actor on stage the most important thing in a moment, then you're going to spot false behavior like a bright orange jumpsuit. You'll see the shallow belief behind words as clear as bad singing. You'll begin to doubt before you believe, and then...as I've seen with people I've worked with in the past (not naming any names), you completely isolate yourself while you're in the business. That's the maddening life of an artist. It's no wonder why most people don't get too involved in the craft, and those who do can get lost so easily.
So who's real, and who's merely out for themselves? How are you supposed to react when you discover that someone you've invested in is not interested in your problems? In the past week, I've dealt with being interrupted, rejected, bombarded with small talk, and at the same time being told to stay cool and to simply enjoy the friendship when I'm obviously not being treated like a friend.

And here's the real bottom line; In the past week, my mother was admitted to the hospital via the emergency room and is still in a hospital bed without much more than guesses about what put her there in the first place. It's been nearly impossible to get a hold of a doctor, but tomorrow she may be two procedures away from being released. Hopefully. That's where my heart and my mind has been, and still, with that knowledge a few people have taken shots at me. I do believe that's worse than the indifference of others. People should know better, but they don't. The end result for yesterday was a total breakdown and the clouds of depression darkening the sky. It shouldn't have happened. After having gone through losing another friend to cancer, walking away from my theater company and finishing a production, the changes at work, and my mother, I shouldn't have had to go through the catharsis I did.

So it's time once again to toughen my skin and try to move past, to focus on the health of my family and to not take on the baggage of others as my responsibility. Yes, it hurts like hell when friends acknowledge I'm having trouble and abandon me, but when I step back, my priorities become a little more clear. My family comes first. I can always call them and - thank God - my mother is getting better and I'm going to commit to calling my parents a little more often. My very real friends who love me also need more of my attention, because they have proven themselves, even when we've had trouble in the past, that they won't leave me.

Most of all, because I need to be there for the most important people in my life, I can't lose faith in myself. I am who I am because I've chosen to be. I write. I play music. I am working hard for a creative life and trying to find a career that will fullfill that. Right now, I have a film festival, a play to direct this coming Saturday, and another play in the works. That's what I know I have. There may not be a relationship in there, nor is there a muse any more, but I do have purpose. Some people have exchanged that for a sense of belonging, but I think I've done okay for myself.
This was the sound of me hitting bottom. This is a frame of my deformed shape meeting an immovable object. Change comes next.