morning thoughts: then & now
9.11.10 I 5:48am I Secret Desk
My morning thoughts used to be those of anticipation for the day. I’d lay in bed and plan out my day with my eyes closed, noting what I needed to bring with me or when I would eat lunch. Occasionally those thoughts would come too early and too fast, hot with anxiety. I could usually redirect it or swap it out for a dream of the future. Future dreams, then, in the *before-times* revolved around our next upcoming trip: a weekend on the Jersey coast for our anniversary; a trip to California (or Texas or Washington) to visit family and friends. Once we went to Greece for a vacation in a tiny fishing village- that might land as my ultimate future dream and now cherished memory.
If I really let myself flash forward, I’d think about my five year plan: kids, what it would be like to have a home upstate *and* our apartment in the city, a book deal, a movie deal! I was ambitious and eager.
My morning thoughts now seem to be focused on the past, teeming with anxiety and regret: a dinner at our apartment with friends where the chicken wasn’t quite cooked all the way through; an awkward thing I blurted out during sex 7 years ago; an encounter with a stranger on a subway platform that lingers in my mind. My mind flashes to the same feeling of unease in a hundred different moments, smash cut together as I lay in bed, bathing in blue pre-dawn light.
A folder of Unresolved Moments, thrown into the air, memories float down and drape my bed in half-stories. No closure. The emotional loop remains open and ambiguous forever threatening to loom above my pillow before the sun’s arrival.
This morning I watched from behind my eyelids as nineteen-year me stole cans of chickpeas and greenbeans from people I was babysitting for when I was too poor for a grocery budget. (I’m sorry.)
Now, I can afford food. I even go to the fancy grocery store every two weeks and stock up on luxury items like gluten free biscotti and tiny, ruby-red strawberries like the ones that grew in my backyard as a kid. They actually taste like strawberry!
Now, I live in the country for at least the next year. We gave up our apartment in the city after the constant sirens, fireworks, gunshots and refrigerator trucks thoroughly shattered our idea of a future in NYC. Our car got shot in March in the middle of the afternoon on a Monday, 100 feet from our home. I lost my business as a wedding photographer. All the scripts I’ve poured my heart into are officially shelved and if it seemed like a foolish endeavor before 2020, well now it feels just plain stupid to pursue a career in screenwriting.
Lauren and I started a new business- a sales consultancy. Which is neither as plain or as glamorous as it may seem. It’s fine. But as an introverted, creative writer, I don’t make the best sales person. I do fine. I’m doing fine. This new job is keeping our lights on. And by 2020 standards, that is LIVING EASY.
It has taken me 29 years to call myself an artist. Do you know how I finally came to the conclusion? I became a salesperson. You don’t know you’re a fish in water swimming along with all the other fish until you’re suddenly in a desert with lions. Suddenly that question, “Am I a fish?” becomes irrelevant and obvious. Luckily I have some kind of magical ability that alllows me to stand up on my back fins and posture as a lion. I can talk like a lion (though my voice gets a little watery) and I can walk like a lion (only in short bursts and then you better get me into a tank of water fast). Survival packaged to look like a party trick. Hell, I’ll even smile and tip my hat.
