Something happened in Andrea's class this past Wednesday. We were working on a simple diagnostic of our breathing and how we use the breath to communicate. She was touching my solar plexus and looking me straight in the eye as she explained to me that I either didn't give enough breath to carry my intention to my intended target, or that I was straining to send the message; that there was no ease to my speaking. In that moment, certain circumstances of my life, which I have recently been dealing with all came to a fine point. I had a sort of epiphanic experience where many things suddenly became clear to me.
I realized that there were some rather old wounds that I had thought long healed that had perhaps not mended properly; I had felt my problems had been allayed, but like a broken bone that doesn't stitch properly, I had come face-to-face with the realization that I was, intact, perhaps still not well. As she continued on to work on my classmates, I watch, and wept with the ideas that were now swirling in my head. I tried to set it all down to be digested here, but ended up with far too much to publish in one go.
When I was at CSUF, I remember Zack Kraus telling me that a graduate acting program was a place to learn as much about yourself as you would about acting. Kraus was right. You can add it to the list of things at which he excels (which includes a discerning, educated palate for whiskey and cheese).
I've had a lot of trouble writing this down. I find myself going back and editing things for content, which is something that I'm not used to doing. I feel fairly adept at setting down my thought single sitting, but recording my feelings... labeling them as mine where people will read them is, apparently, a different story.
I finally got a chance to have my trialogue performed (which I believe I may have mentioned in the Honeybadger post, but will explain in a companion post) in Kristin's class on Friday. The trialogue turned out to be revealing. Even though I was repaired for it after witnessing other people's pieces performed, I still felt it hard to speak about myself and what my piece revealed about me to my classmates. I felt especially reluctant to share with people how I felt about my dragon. How in touch I felt with the sensations that I feel from what I am about to share here.
My family was broken pretty early in my life. My father made the choice to not want to be a part of the family that he helped create and left after my mother gave up on trying to change him. She went to work to support me and I didn't get to spend much time with her because she spent much of her time trying to support me on her own. When I was growing up, in my teenage years, I did have some contact with my father after not seeing him for a while. I would spend Summers out in Arizona with him and his side of the family. It was explained to me, by him one Summer, that I was an unplanned pregnancy and that that situation was the beginning of the end for their marriage. I didn't take that well. It took some time to figure out that despite being the catalyst for many arguments, that it wasn't really MY fault that that rift had grown between them. I still have some issues there.
Fast-forward.
If you've been keeping up to date on this blog, you may be familiar with the fact that I have some intimacy issues. Much of that... wait a second, disclaimer:
I apologize if any of this gets a bit emo, but I figure that this is where I figure much of this comes from, and in the interest of telling this story and getting to part three, I have to go through here. This is the part that's hard to post.
Much of that has to do with rejection. There's some rejection that I feel from my father on a certain level. I don't ruminate on it often, but it's been so long a part of me that it feels like it's a part of my social DNA. I was also in a relationship with a wonderful person for six and a half years. It didn't end well. That, in fact, might be a severe understatement.
I was not doing well for a while. Our relationship had been great, but it balanced on a precarious fulcrum. I was dealing with some depression in my senior year at CSUF. I was seeing a counselor to talk to about a lot of things, and my relationship was suffering for what would be later referred to as my weakness in not being able to carry the ball. After graduation, I moved to Hollywood with two of my classmates to start my career in "the industry" She had taken a semester off, which had put her a year behind, so she remained in Fullerton (about an hour away) to finish school. We broke up for about two months after she told me how unhappy she was. I begged her to reconsider and she took me back for a few more months. I completely gave myself up in trying to make her happy, but ultimately, it wasn't meant to be. Retrospect. I had gone back to Sacramento to fulfill a promise that I had made to a very dear friend and mentor of mine. I was working a job there; she realized she like life much better without me in it and made the cut. We went through periods of talking and not talking. She graduated and went on tour. She made sure to stay in contact with me after we broke up, after all we had been each other's best friend for six years, it was hard for both of us to let go of that.
After my obligation in Sacramento was complete, I had trouble finding a job in the post-2008 recession. I was in this confused limbo, trying to figure out where my life was going to go and failure after failure after failure led me in to a pretty intense depression. I was suicidal. I was terrified of that and what that meant. Things didn't work out according to plan, and for me, who was always in control; always had a plan; always had a direction. That was a lot to cope with.
I mentioned that we went through spells of speaking and not speaking. She had, that Christmas, lost her grandparents and called me to share the sad news. She needed comfort and turned to me. It gave me some purpose for a while, having someone to look after. It got my mind off of me, but eventually the subject of became up and how I was doing. Some things are better left unsaid. I knew where I was headed, and since she was there during the beginning of my unhappy decent, I felt like I could turn to her for a bit of solace. She told me she didn't care if I lived or died; I wasn't her responsibility.
The rest of the story... I don't care to share here.
I'm fully aware that I'm not the only person who has ever had these fears, but I'd be lying to you if the thought of going back to that place of vulnerability, that place of being in someone's hands, didn't frighten me.
"Have you ever been in love? Horrible, isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens up your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses, you build up a whole suit of armor, so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different than any other stupid person, wanders in to your stupid life... You give them a piece of you. They didn't ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It get;s inside of you. IT eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so a simple phrase like, "Maybe we should just be friends.", turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It's a soul-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. I hate love."
- Neil Gaiman, from The Sandman
I once freaked out because someone tried to pour my catsup.
-R
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