the condensed version

I feel guilty that I have to rack my brain to find a “worst memory.” The pain, heartache, and loss that so many have gone through make my life hiccups look pale in comparison.
I would say that my worst memory comes as an all over sense of self. One that feels less-than. For my entire life I have always had the inability to meet others’ expectations, I haven’t been good enough.
The fear has become so unmanageable that it invades my mind at night. Not in the form of dreams, but more like nightmares.
Maybe I could be the person everyone wants me to be, but if I had done that, I wouldn’t be where I am now. It has taken a certain bravery to attempt to shake off the expectations of a world where I don’t feel I belong. That bravery has brought me prizes that are beyond my dreams, AND nightmares.
…………
This post idea came from Write on Edge [Remembe(RED)]. “Explore your worst memory.
What was it? How did it affect you? What would you have done differently, if anything?
We wanted you to imagine the act of writing it would free you from it.”

Clean freak or lazy geek?

Long distance relationships.
Kim is in her early forties, and has two teenage boys. She was married to an emotionally abusive man for fourteen years. Their marriage ended quite a few years ago, and she’s now in one of those long distance relationships.
Kim is beautiful, and kind. A little strange at times, but kind. She lives in Colorado, and this man, Jeff, lives in California. The two of them have been together for six years. He has come out to see her a few times, and she has taken several trips to see him. Seems oddly one-sided.
He finally proposed three years ago, but has done nothing to move toward a marriage, which in my limited understanding, usually comes after the man asks the woman to marry him.
What’s stranger than this is, when asked if she reads non-fiction, she said, “No, I can’t even sit down to watch a movie. My boys try to get me to, but I just can’t. I think it comes from all those years with my ex. He always expected me to be doing something. The boys and I had to make sure everything was perfect when he came home.”
So I asked, “What do you and Jeff do when you visit him?” Thinking that watching movies would be something they would do together.
“Oh, that’s all we do. Watch movies.”
I looked at her quizzically.
“His house is a mess, but I would be stepping on his toes of I started cleaning up after him. I don’t feel like there’s anything that needs to be done when I’m with him. We can just relax.”
I was left wondering who Jeff thinks she is. A woman who loves to sit down with him all day (because we aren’t living in reality where people go to work and have things to do), drink wine, and watch the latest cinematic thriller? What about the woman he doesn’t really know? The one who keeps busy because she feels she doesn’t deserve to enjoy herself for a few minutes.
These two have spent six years attempting to get to know each other, yet what do they know? It’s the same thing with The Bachelor, The Bachelorette, and countless other reality t.v. dating shows, they are living in a fantasy world. No commitments, no jobs, no kids, no in-laws. Even though it’s a reality t.v. show, there is no reality.
So, I ask, and I wonder (because that’s what I do), who are we? Who do we want to be? Do you want to be the woman who spends time with her family, watching movies, playing games, and reading good books? Or do you want to be the woman who works from dawn until she collapses in bed after midnight, making sure the house is spick and span, and there are four courses at every meal?
Do you want to be the husband/dad who enjoys spending time with his wife, attending his kids games, and goes to the grocery store (no embarrassment included)? Or do you want to be the one who lives in front of the t.v. every evening?
Are you the person you want to be, or the person you think you’re supposed to be?

you don’t understand the story

In a past issue of Writer’s Digest, I came across an interview with Pat Conroy. In it, he talks about going to Hollywood years ago to work on the screenplay for The Prince of Tides. The director fired him, saying that Pat didn’t understand the story.
I laughed out loud when I read what Pat said in his interview. That a director would have the audacity to tell the author of the book (especially such a well known one) that he didn’t understand it. If I were Pat, I would have threw some new ones his way, and taken the screenplay with me.
It was his story wasn’t it? How could he not understand it? Understanding or not, we all look at movies, books, life, in different ways, through different eyes. I have different experiences than my neighbor, my closest friend, and even my parents.
How do we begin to understand others? It begins when we start to understand ourselves.
I am in the midst of writing a novel, and I am stuck. Somewhere between the beginning and the middle. The main character isn’t what I want her to be. I know how I would like to continue the plot, but I just couldn’t move forward. I finally realized that there is an experience that she was meant to have in the beginning that doesn’t exist, at least not yet. As I am formulating this new experience and trying to rework the novel in my head, I see that it can now move forward with a flow that was missing before. A reason, shall we say.
I could say that I wasn’t “understanding” the story. And it was my own. How strange is that?
This goes beyond the stories that are typed out and turned in as manuscripts. It flows into life. Understanding ourselves.

Image source: http://www.nationalgeographic.com