Epiphanies

The other day this old friend of mine contacted me via MySpace. I haven't talked to her literally in years, but once we were best friends, and we did the whole "how are you how's your life what are you up to these days" exchange, and today when I wrote the 25 cent summary of my life at the moment, I stopped at the end and thought, Now wait. I'm just doing that thing where you exaggerate everything to make your life sound really great when it's actually destroying your soul, but then I reread what I'd written and realized, No, actually, my life is absolutely amazing, and I'm so lucky, and the stuff I'm doing makes me so happy. I just need to manage my time better and then I will spend less of my time crying.

Lately I've been helping shoot a trailer that some friends/coworkers of mine are creating. Today when we started shooting we did this shot that I sort of came up with, and it looked amazing. This whole concept of being good at what I do is really difficult for me, and it's not always true, of course, because I am a human being and I fuck up all the time, like y'do, but the idea that after a week of non-stop work my boss could take me aside and not tell me that I need to knock it off, whatever I'm doing, but instead tell me that I'm doing great and that he's incredibly relieved to be able to rely on my abilities... it really takes some getting used to. I've become accustomed to being frustrated with myself, not being able to get things done, making excuses, getting discouraged, and that I've found something that satisfies me is a welcome change.

When I think about the future, of course I get terrified, because I am twenty-one years old, and almost no one I know is doing what they were doing when they were twenty-one, and I know that I'll probably have fifty existential crises in the next year, and who knows where I'll even be then. I'm getting into the time in my academic career where I should probably start moving toward a path that will allow me to pay rent and buy groceries, and in fact I'm already pretty much on it, but soon I will have to cast off the shackles of academia and all that rot and survive on my own, and that's really scary. I definitely do not feel like I have the knowledge and skills required to get any sort of job anywhere, but since I'm already getting freelancing work, on-the-job experience will not be too hard to come by. I guess. I guess the point is, I'm happy, when I'm not really stressed out and panicky, and that's a good thing.

In a week is the memorial for Marge Brown, who was one of my mentors, and who died this summer of ovarian cancer. Arguably, it is Marge's fault I am where I am today. I wanted to drop out of school for a while to figure stuff out, but instead Marge got me my internship, for which I was supremely underqualified, and at which I obviously thrived. By the time I really got into the rhythm of things she was too sick to be my supervisor and among many other aspects of her death I regret that she didn't get to see me at my most confident and competent, because it was she who started me on my way there. After three months I am still so unbearably sad that she's gone, that when I was asked if I would be the one to videotape the memorial I almost started crying, so I can't even imagine what a basket case I'll be at the event itself. I'm not sure if I'll feel any more closure after the memorial; I already went to her funeral this summer, and it seems like maybe this will be similar except with five times as many people. But possibly it will actually be a celebration of life, not in the we're-not-calling-this-a-funeral-but-really-it-is sort of a way, but in the way that old friends can tell stories and laugh and remember without being desperately unhappy. I hope so.

I miss you, Margie.