Running Lines

Two years ago I pried this out of a crumbling cookie and I felt a visceral YES: Make decisions, with intention, that help you feel centered and vibrant. 

Pick a path with heart. 

I remembered this fortune today, and the actor in me kept turning it over in my mind, running the line this way and that until it became:

Pick a path, with heart.

So decide. And then do it with gusto. 

Create Miracles & Earn Thousands While Working or Going to School

That last school part was what got her to click on the listing.

It said she could earn $5,000 to $10,000 per cycle with minimal commitment. She was above the desired age range of 20-28. No matter, she could lie. She looked younger than she was. She felt younger, too.

Nine years ago, she’d been going through casting notices in Backstage. At one breakdown she paused a little longer to read it in full: 

Seeking gifted, caring young woman to help us grow our family! Actress/Model, 5’7” or taller, score of 2000 SAT/30 ACT or above, ages 20-25. Please submit headshot and resume via email. Compensation of at least $30,000.

It was more money than she’d ever made in a year. It was way more money than any SPT contract would pay her; the time commitment would be about the same. She frowned thinking about the couple who must have posted the advertisement. Very Los Angeles of them. She felt a bit of satisfaction knowing that she could submit, that she fully matched the breakdown. For once, she would be perfectly cast in the role.

At the time it seemed absurd. Why get fat and hormonal (even more so than the various forms of contraception already made her) for another woman? Why waste your first, potentially perfect child on someone else?

She sat at her desk, staring at the Craigslist ad. Sure, she could still pass as 28, but why bother? There were no potentially perfect first babies. There were one to two million eggs at the start. Now, statistically, 90 percent gone. Dwindling monthly. And $30,000 wasn’t shit.

Accident

Raising my hands, I press the heels of my palms into my forehead. My neck hurts. Slowly, I bring my hands down my face, the pads of my fingertips sliding over my closed eyes. I've apparently begun to cry.

I'd been at a standstill on the 101, having slammed on my own breaks minutes before. It's a Saturday, and the exit was backed up. The driver behind me hadn't sensed that, hadn't been comfortable driving his rental SUV, hadn't understood that he wouldn't clear me by veering to the left.

I'm fine. I mean physically, I think, I'm fine. But something unfurled, some sort of hurt insisted on its release, and so I drove around bewildered with my fender flopping and scraping and sounding as though my car would crumble beneath me.

I drove past my old studio, the one behind the craftsman in Hollywood. I recalled the night I cradled his head in my lap on those front steps. It was a warm smoky night, and we had been drinking and singing and going over his past relationships. I had wondered, aloud, how it was possible that any woman could have willingly hurt him.

There are ghost towns within this town.

Each time I move a little further away, I forget them, and I continue on with the act of living; I pay my bills and I try to be kind and to grow and to make room for my art and to let go of old notions of who I was supposed to be. To be forgiving of the distance between that girl and who I now am. I stick to my neighborhood. I don't venture to old homes that are draped in unfulfilled wishes, like a string of twinkly lights.

And yet, today, that was the only thing that would do. I drove to my old home and wept for the girl who once dreamt inside, for the woman who must continue to dream, amend, and dream some more.

How Long?

How does one measure trust in increments of time?

Occasionally, she believes that she was placed here to experience as much as humanly possible. (At least, here, in this little corner of the world, on this planet in this universe: the smallest blip, if ever there even was a blip.)

Lately she's dreamt of baby animals.

These are not kind dreams.

In the first dream, she found herself caring for a baby rabbit. He was khaki-colored with floppy ears. He was tiny, and he was unwell. She held him with her right hand, grasping underneath his front legs, so that his bunny shoulders were hunched up. Underneath his fur she felt toothpick ribs, a heartbeat (reassuring, but fast, so fast), and a tummy ballooning in and out with each breath. She held him close to her chest but let him face forward so that he could see what they were dealing with.

He was then ripped away from her.

She awoke, and gasp-yelped as a rabbit would, grinding her teeth as they do.

There was no immediate analysis to be made of the dream.

And there seems to be no quantifiable amount of time in which trust can be regained.

Small Things

And it may be that you will never entirely know your lover

Their innermost thoughts

Perhaps the full transparency you desire would ultimately prove to be painfully unnecessary

And perhaps

Perhaps even you could not requite what you are requiring

But

If you can ask specifically for what you need

If you can feel safe enough to do so

And if your lover can receive that

And then do their best to provide that

And if you can do the same in return

Would that be enough?

YOLO

The idea that such an enormous life event can’t be embraced and ultimately celebrated is extremely narrow-minded and, well, self-righteously judgmental. The blissful beginnings are full of ritual: of parties and showered gifts, of well-wishes and familial support. Why not let the ending, if there should be an ending, be allowed the same respect: a ritual of its own, however tinged with sadness it may be?

I could page through my journals in an effort to uncover my missteps. I could pray for a different outcome. I could throw myself at my partner’s feet, only to discover his unwillingness to walk forward with me by his side. I could do all of these things, and I have done all of those things. And yet, here I am.

I’ve howled in my empty home and I’ve mourned the children we will never have. But I can’t keep at it forever, and I really hope you’d not want that for anyone. It’s far too sad.

I’d like to live. I’d like to thrive. And if that offends your beliefs, your ideas of our covenant, although you have no inkling of the complexities of our relationship, if it screams YOLO to you…may I remind you that as juvenile and hedonistic as the YOLO attitude is, the Y ultimately stands for You. Which, in this case, stands for me. 

It’s the hopeful bride’s journey. It’s the happily-exhausted-proud-parents-of-a-newborn’s journey. It’s the divorced dad’s journey. It’s my journey. 

And I’m gonna celebrate and honor every step of my way.

December

A "congratulations" in a sea of murmured "so sorry"s. 

I couldn't even properly respond. It had been two years of dressing in black, two years filled with quite a lot of looking back and so very little looking forward. 

The sentiment had actually been hinted at before, by others who could stand to gain from it. But this seemed genuine. 

"I love the idea of you," a man once said to me. The idea, the idea, the projections and not the muck of me. And I do it too, with someone new, and I blush because I can't help myself. 

And I can't help but wonder, what if? What if that change in perspective is just the thing I need: a sturdy enough little ship, bravely pressing onward.