Closer to Normal: What they don’t tell you about loss
Maybe we can’t be okay
But maybe we’re tough and we’ll try anyway
We’ll live with what’s real
Let go of what’s passed and maybe I’ll see you at last
-Next to Normal, ‘Maybe’ (listen)
This entry will not touch on mental illness, but I feel Next to Normal’s soundtrack best sums up what it means to piece a life back together again, or not.
If you are lucky and things take their normal course, you will realize your parents are mortal. You will see them age, and you will be made aware of their failing health.
Then you will fight. You will fight because no parent wants to look weak in front of their kids. You will be asked to live normally, but you will suffer, and I mean suffer, the brunt of their frustration. You will be parenting someone who used to parent you and it sucks. You will be asked to make decisions for them, and choose between lesser evils so he or she doesn’t turn on him or herself.
If you’re luckier, they will live on and be the doting and annoying parent you’ve always known them to be. If you’re not so lucky, you will have to wish them goodbye and that’s when the real work begins.
The internet trend now is dividing their lives by their teens, twenties, and thirties. I define my life by WM (With Mom) and AM (After Mom).
After Mom, I learned to balance the checking account and be a little more vigilant about the chores I have to do. I learned to actually work with people and not be so caught up in the great talent myth.
I learned that not all families are rock hard foundations. Family becomes more of people you happen to be related to. Their best and worst comes out when you buckle down and really work to keep it together.
Your dreams change. For me, this was the most shocking. When you have very little left to your name, you get a reality check. It’s not about giving up on your dreams, but recognizing which dreams build you and which control you. You may have spent several years saying you wanted to be that rockstar or artist, but if the big break doesn’t come in, you will have to make certain sacrifices and risk not looking back. There are responsibilities bigger than you now, and with limited resources it’s a luxury to choose to love or hate it.
Your friends will change. I’d like to think this becomes less shocking as you grow older, but I can’t exactly say. I had a very difficult time with this, having lost my Mom in my mid-twenties. Where my friends then worried about whether they were in the right job or if that date they had will call back, I was trying to make sense of running a household on my own. You will make new friends, you will find better friends. But yes, you will also lose friends. This will hurt, but this will not be a bad thing in the long run.
These lessons didn’t come easy. I had to crash and lose more than people than I’d like to learn them. It doesn’t get easier, but it becomes less of a struggle when you learn to let go of the idea of what life and family are supposed to be. Take things as they come, and work your butt off to face the worst that does come along.
Poem on a Rainy Day
Just a little something that dawned on me while whiling away at Cara Mia Galleria.
I know things now – or not
30) While in school, don’t opt for what’s “easy”. Take what interests you, but put effort into the subjects that don’t interest you. Despite what the teachers might say, struggling doesn’t mean you’re stupid – struggling is a part of it.
29) It’s fine if you want to take up a course for fun. It’s also fine if you want to take up a course because it’s practical. Just don’t be the jerk who thinks your course is better than that other course. Because-
28) You might not even use your course when you finally graduate. This is not a waste of money. You graduate with the discipline, know-how, and network of people you can rely on. You will find ways to use that wherever you may be, even if it is flipping burgers or taking out the trash somewhere.
27) When you’re good at something, pass it on.
26) Ask questions now, save your stupid points for later.
25) You will learn from jobs you hate.
24) Follow your heart, but learn from your heartbreak.
23) Respect your family as long as you live with them. Respect them even if you decide to part from them. Respect doesn’t mean you agree with them, you don’t even have to like them. Just take them as family. Whether you like it not, they will be the first one informed when the worst happens. They will be forced by law, at some point, to acknowledge that you exist – even if it means identifying the body.
22) “Selling out” goes both ways. You can either give up your soul for the money, or you let your work – in the office or with art – destroy you.
21) Even if you don’t make it to those promised coffee dates with people who matter, keep trying. Never give up.
20) If you must be an asshole, you should earn it first.
19) School won’t teach you everything. You may not even need a degree to do what you do. But if you must go down this route, you must be extremely good at what you do, and you have to work very hard to be consistently excellent at it.
18) Do things for free or work for peanuts while in school. Don’t wait until you graduate, you’ll have a significant advantage when you have some work experience under your belt.
17) Use birth control, seriously. Having a kid in your early twenties is a Russian roulette in life lessons. Sometimes, it works out just fine. But can you manage it if and when things do fall apart?
16) If you can’t save as much as you should, start with 5 pesos. Then build from there.
15) Know when it isn’t your calling without having to wait for frogs to fall out of the sky. Recognize patterns, recognize your strengths. See how you can best apply and build on your talents, instead of aggravating your weaknesses.
14) Be realistic about what you’re worth. HINT: it’s not about the school you come from, it’s about what you can do and how you’ve proven it over and over again.
13) If you’re creative, you archive obsessively. You do not have any excuse not to have a portfolio in this day and age and only so much talent can excuse a lazy ass.
12) When in doubt, go old school. Do it manually.
11) Don’t be afraid of what you’re worth, but be prepared to negotiate.
10) Get insurance, even if it’s the minimal accidental insurance plan. You’ll regret it if you keep putting it off.
9) If you can’t travel, meet new people — the type that aren’t in your immediate circle of friends.
8) It’s ok if you don’t forgive people, but you do need to let go and let live.
7) This city, this world, is too small to hold grudges.
6) You will outgrow people. Don’t feel bad about it.
5) It’s ok to do stuff for free once in awhile, but treat it as if it were a paying project and don’t be a pushover.
4) There’s a fine line between character building and reckless idiot. Choose wisely.
3) Manage expectations with other people and yourself.
2) If you don’t have anything nice to say, say it once then walk away.
1) I’ll figure the rest out. Check back again in 10 years.
Don’t date a director
Written during a very bad time with Nikki, my boyfriend of two and a half years as of writing. We’re generally okay as long as his shoot sked doesn’t hijack our dates. The ‘Don’t date a…’ series has run its course online, but If anyone deserves a ‘Don’t date a…’ entry, I think its directors.
Don’t date a director.
They see what you can’t see. They will frame you. They will challenge your story over and over again. It’s a strange process, you are never really certain why it has to be told that way. You love them when they’re afire with their passion, when they tremble to their fingertips as they beg you to hear their tale. You count up to the thousands when they crash, when their tempers get the better of them, when they nitpick every little detail not seen by the naked eye.
But you will be dazzled by how they put you into the light that suits your mood. You forgive them when they will make you hope and believe that things will be just like the movies, that through it all, no matter how flawed, it will be happily ever after then cue end credits.
Then the schedule comes in. You will be made to wait. You will wait anywhere from days to weeks.
Like their jobs, with you, you know they work hard behind the scenes, but you have no idea what it is that they actually see. If you’re lucky, there’s a monitor, and you can see minutes of that scene they just shot. But it’s one scene out of the hundreds, thousands, all lined up but waiting to be put together. You only have to trust them to make it right. It’s like a blind person hanging onto a complete stranger and trusting that he’ll lead you to where you need to be. But while you trust them, sometimes, you have no other choice but to stand still in the dark, waiting for the next set-up (And god help you if he likes going off-script). As someone in a director’s line of sight, you have their full attention, and you don’t. You are among among people but are so alone.
Through the heartache, through the shouting, and take after take after take, in the murkiest of certainties, when it finally comes through on your big screen, you are swept away in awe. It is larger than you, than him, than her, and it is – it has always been – for you. That is why you cry when you smile and laugh, and you hurt in all kinds of places but through it all you love. It’s the gray areas that make sense to them, even if they can never say so.
Don’t date a director. Date someone who can keep the time, make your dates, who will be there. Someone who you will hear, see, touch, who will tell you as it is. You will say your ‘I love yous’, and your vows. You will have polite kisses and perfectly planned dates and three point five kids. You will see the big picture even before it unfolds because hey, it’s all according to plan.
But if that were a film, you wouldn’t watch it.
Clean Hands, Pure Hearts
Ever since I’ve been a little more active as a Christian, At least one person asks me, “Why do you celebrate Holy Week? Is it because of family?”
Funny thing with me, it’s not because of family. My Mom practiced Catholicism and Christianity, but we had our journeys at different times. I started my journey after Mom passed away.
Religion and spirituality are very personal journeys. I remember being very uncomfortable around people who liked to preach their faith, since I knew the next natural step would be hardcore conversion. When I chose my path, I also chose tact. No one forced me to attend service or mass. I chose to do it myself. I admit that there are people who I genuinely wish would attend service, not just for the sake of it, but to really listen. I feel that where humanity’s flaws can’t be explained, faith fills in the blanks. One hopes that people become more compassionate out of it.
I’m hesitant to use the word celebrate. Jesus faced an unfair trial and ended up nailed on the cross. Holy Week, for me, is an observance of his sacrifice. While we are saved in his surrender to the cross, it is a painful ordeal that Christian men and women are challenged to follow. The act defines Jesus since he was the only one who could do it for all the right reasons. He did it out of love. Could any one who follows after do the same? Even if I were willing, would it be for the right reasons?
Holy Week is a meditation on that question – wherever one may be.
Meanwhile, here’s a song to go with that thought.
“It’s interesting as you sing that song, you’re reminded of how we continually our hands dip into sin. We continually handle things that cause us separation from the Lord. It’s a reminder of how important it is to have that childlike faith, the simplicity of just singing out to the Lord.” -James Mead