First of all...

I just want to say that I should get a fucking story by credit for that piece of shit movie "Click." Did you all not see my last post from a year ago? "Wouldn't it be great to have TiVo for life?" And then, all of the sudden, there's an Adam Sandler movie about TiVo-ing your life? HMMMMM...pretty fucking fishy to me. I'm sure no one EVER thought of that idea before.

Second of all, long time, no post. Want to know why? Well too bad. I know I sound mad, but wouldn't you be if your hard thought out TiVo idea had been stolen by Happy Fucking Gilmore?

Okay, I'll tell...sort of. I'm back because I need to write. I'm back because this is cheaper than therapy. I'm back because I know hardly anyone will read this, and I need a place to be as raunchy, weird, fucked up and crazy as I want to be without being censored (as my post is yanked by the blogger censors tonight).

I've had a rough time of it lately. Writers are cliched in their neuroticism and craziness...I dared to say in my early days as a writers' P.A. that I'd never be successful because I was too "normal." If I only knew then what I know now. It took 4 years of working 8 hour tedious days at an Internet company and only writing at night or on weekends, getting married, getting my first freelance animation gig, and a year of panic attacks for me to completely breakdown. I lost it, and began to question not only my role as a writer, but my very existence and meaning in this world. I had tried to be so many things for so many people, that I lost sight of what was truly important...the ultimate existential crisis of WHO AM I?

Then, the shit went down. As I lay in Cedars ER on a lovely Sunday afternoon, scared out of my mind, chest burning, pulse racing, palms sweating, I realized that I was never going to be the same again. I was either dying, or shedding my coccoon into a completely different person. Neither sounded nor felt appealing. I tried like hell to fight it. When Dr. McSweety (I can't spell his real last name...and hey, he was McSweet) approached, gently leaning over my bed in the ER hallway, gazing into my eyes and tenderly asking, "So, what's going on?" I almost burst into tears on the spot. I honestly didn't know what was going on anymore. It was like my mind was running marathons everyday to keep me sane but my body finally said, "Fuck this, I want the couch and some Doritos." It had had enough, and was screaming for help via massive panic attacks. Dr. McSweety was calm and reassuring, and ran every test he should have to make sure I didn't have a virus or a blood clot, but it didn't matter. I knew that he knew. It was anxiety, but it was so much more. His compassion, along with the other staffers in the ER made me want to bawl my eyes out...there was no judgement, no dismissiveness, no annoyance. Ironically, all things I'd failed to banish from my day to day dealings with myself. There was only care. Something I would have to learn to do for myself all over again.

Of course it got worse before it got better. I realized that my "normalness" had just been a form of repressing my feelings and was slowly killing me. So now I cry, I let myself feel, I let myself think crazy thoughts, and most importantly, I write.

It's been a long 2 months, and I'm now just getting back to the place where writing feels good, and right. I have to thank my therapist and an amazing book called Wild Mind for gettting me excited about writing instead of fearing it. I'm not quite healed, I'm not quite better, but I am aware that I am crazy enough to be a successful writer! Kidding...sorta.

Seriously though, if I did have the TiVo control for life, would I take back the last two months of hell...the doctors visits, the therapy, the drugs that tried to fix me but failed, the family confrontations, the look of worry and fear in my husband's eyes, the feeling that I'd never be the same again? NO, NO, NO. I know now that all the panic and anxiety and uncertainty were pushing me forward...past the pain and the terror and fear, where a new and exciting world of peace awaits. I don't want to be the same. I want to be better. I'm on my way.