Conversations With Our Old Selves...

Have you ever looked back over a span of your life and wished you could have a conversation with your [X] year-old self?

Tonight I did that. I was scouring my shelves for a notebook in which I could jot some ideas to inspire my latest novel and I came across one in which I haven't written for years.

For a while, I went through a phase where I asked for notebooks and journals as gifts. As a result, I have an eclectic collection that is emblazoned from everything from "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," to a cute toddler dressed in fairy clothing.

Tonight, I pulled out a random notebook. In it, I found a "journal" entry from 1999. I say "journal" because it's clear, back then, I intended to keep track of my life. Unfortunately, my attempts were from New Years' Eve through New Years' Day of that year. After that, there's a couple of blank pages and then a list of "Why I'm grateful I moved to Los Angeles."

It reminded me that I'm fond of lists. Sometimes it's nice to see things in black and white, even though life is rarely that simple. Today, for example, I was told that the job for which I interviewed could be mine. It's going to be offered to me on Thursday when I meet with my interviewer to discuss the compensation package.

It seems so simple. I've been miserable at my current job and thus, this new one should be a blessing in disguise...right? And yet, as I stated yesterday, things things are never that simple. Just as I found a lifeline out of the office that has caused much of my misery over the past year or more, I was offered a lifeline within that office. My boss finally recognized that I had aspirations and hopes. It only took two years.

So now I stand at a crossroads. Do I dive into an unknown future or do I sit, comfortably, on the present past?

The nice thing is that it may be simpler than I'm making it. The new job may end up being of a salary that is too low for me to contemplate. It may offer the hope of commission-based earnings but the base salary may be too hard for me to contemplate in the bill-owing reality of my world.

Or, it may be hard. It may be a job I feel suited for and the salary may be comparable to mine. In which case, my dilemma from yesterday of the devil I know vs. the devil I don't may be relevant.

It's hard to tell. Yet, tonight, when I came across my list from 1999, I was reminded of the simplicity of life. In 1999, I was 24 years old. I had recently read "Bridget Jones' Diary," and so I wrote without pronouns. I wrote feverishly, spilling the secrets of my singleton status as though the diary were my wine-saturated best friend.

I had written the entry on New Years' Eve, 1999. It turns out, I went to see a movie, specifically, "The Talented Mr. Ripley," with my best friend, Saz. I had a good time. Yet, I was clearly searching for the meaning of my life. I was clearly contemplating a move to L.A., a digression from the Midwest to the West Coast. I was contemplating writing a screenplay. I had written, in my own words, "Probably should write a screenplay or something. No point in saying I'm a writer if I don't write."

That was more than 10 years ago. These days, I've been to L.A. and back. I've gone through my resentment of the Midwest and turned, full circle, into being grateful for the simplicity of the Midwest.

I did write a screenplay. I wrote several. Then I wrote television scripts. Then I wrote novels.

Three major feature film scripts, seven television scripts and nine and a half novels later, here I am, back in the Midwest. I think I can safely say I'm a writer, even if my book sales don't agree as much as I wish they would.

It's interesting. Once you get to a certain age, you stop living life minute by frenzied minute. Life slows down and yet speeds up at the same time. You start noticing the small, simple details of life and yet you realize they start passing you by more quickly than they ever have before.

It's been just over ten years. In that time, I've grown from being a dreamer to being a realist. The dreamer in me still exists. I still hope that sales of The Reluctant Demon will increase, that people will realize it's worth the time, even if it has no deep level of significance. It's fun. I still dream that the right person will stumble upon my book or, even, this blog and realize I'm an imprisoned talent trapped in a mundane life.

And yet, the realist speaks louder. The realist has realized that while the dreams are important and even necessary, the reality of life...is now. I may dream of being respected, famous, quoted and respected but, in reality, I exist. I have a house which makes me concrete. I have puppies, which makes me responsible. I write fiction, which makes me creative. I have a job, which also makes me responsible.

I think back then, in 1999, I was still young enough to believe that it was ok to shoot for the stars. These days, I see the stars and look at them with a fondness. I've been there, in a way. I did manage to get the idea to write a novel. I finished that novel. I enjoyed that novel. Then I wrote eight more.

When I step back, I can see that the mere fact that I finished one novel is an accomplishment. I forget that sometimes. In my life, I've always been consistent. In school, I worked hard and got good grades. It was expected of me. In life, it's been expected that I'll make my own way and not rely on others. That, too, is expected.

Sometimes, it's hard to remember that the things that come easiest to us, come hardest to others. Those that know us come to expect that greatness, even "decentness" is an everyday thing. For me, I look at the novels I've written and I see only a series of stories, of characters, of events that are tied together only because I created them. I forget that the simple act of creating them isn't as easy as it seems to me. Once I wrote one book, the rest seemed to be simple.

Then I look back at the journal entry that I wrote on 12-31-99 and I see that, back then, the mere idea of even one novel wasn't even a seed in my mind.

It's amazing how life changes. Some people plan it. Others take it as it comes. Me, I try to plan it but I'm willing to change course if it feels right. In 1999, it seemed right to move my life across the country, 2000 miles away. It seemed right to want to think about writing something.

These days, in 2010, I'm back in the place I abandoned- the autumnal world of the Midwest. I thought about writing and I did it. I wrote about a character who was a hacker and, because I like to be thorough, my research led me to a career in software.

And, so, here I am. I wonder, if I could talk to my Bridget Jones inspired self, whether I'd tell her anything different. Would I change the course of our lives, just to live for another dream?

It's hard to say. Because, when I look back at that Captain Monkeypants' aspirations, writing was my dream, moving across the country was my dream. I accomplished both.

Life is a series of nested dreams. I think it's up to us to decide if we should look at it as a whole, a horizon of unaccomplished wants or as a series of successes, of small conquests that have helped us keep moving forward.

I think it's safer to look at the small conquests. That way, we allow life to keep us flexible. It allows us to go with the flow rather than resolutely say, "No, I won't have that."

It also allows us to deal with life when it says, "No, you shan't have that," even when we think we should.

All in all, I think I'd talk to my ten-years-ago self and tell her that it's ok to have dreams. It's ok to try to accomplish them. If we fail, so be it. If we succeed, power to us. It's about the trying that counts.

And we did that. We're doing that. That's what makes life...life...right?

Happy Wednesday!

A Whirlwind Weekend...

It’s back to work after a good weekend. Flying to L.A. is always interesting because of the time difference. You wouldn’t think that three hours makes that much difference but on a workday when you’ve been up since 6 a.m. EST and you don’t get to sleep until 3 a.m. PST, that’s a relatively long day. Nevertheless, it was worth every minute.

L.A. at Christmas has always seemed odd to me. At night, it doesn’t look that different than the Midwest, light-strewn trees and bushes everywhere, inflatable yard decorations glowing from within and neighbourhoods dressed up for the season. In daylight, it’s a different story. The trees are palm trees, lights tossed into them. The ground is green, the trees are leafy and full.

When I left Dayton to fly out for this trip, it was, literally, freezing. We had a windchill that made it feel like six degrees outside. The hike from the car park at the airport to the terminal was so cold that my ears numbed in the wind, even with my hood up. When I landed in L.A, it was a balmy 50 degrees. I used to consider that cold when I lived there. Now I know better.

Yet, it wasn’t all balmy. It was a very wet weekend, the type I used to long for when I lived in Southern California in which the raindrops pound against the windows, the wind sends waves of rain at you and the roads are wet and shining.

It made Disneyland interesting. The rain mostly held off although there were a couple of downpours. During the fireworks at night, the rain poured but we still stayed to watch. As the fireworks ended, so did the downpour but it was still too slick for the ‘snow’. This usually drifts out gently into the night air after the fireworks, bubbles so fine and tiny, they really do move like snowflakes on a breeze. Yet when it’s raining, these soap bubbles make the ground slippery so they have to hold off on making it snow. When I lived in L.A., I would have been sad about it, deprived of snow and longing for something that even just reminded me of it. Now, I get to go home to the real stuff, freezing cold as it is. There’s nothing I love more than a snow flurry around the holidays.

The rest of the trip was also wet. Going to an outdoor outlet mall was a little wet but still rewarding. It was nice to lay in the comfort of my friend’s room and enjoy the sound of the rain at night. Even if it was a wet weekend, it was well worth the trip.

It’s an interesting thing to do, reverse that which I used to do annually. Once upon a time, this time of year, I was counting down to hop on a plane to go back to the Midwest to visit. Now I’m heading back to L.A. for a visit and going back home to the Midwest.
I can’t say it isn’t a little surreal. Everything’s backwards: The airports, the flight routes, the time change. Yet no matter how much I miss my friends who live there, I can’t say I don’t regret the decision I made to move back to the Midwest. There are things I miss about Southern California. There is something rather nice about being able to walk outside, coatless, in the December air, go to the farmer’s market for fresh berries and eat them while walking on the Santa Monica pier without having to bundle up to fight the cold. Most of all, I miss the people who made it hard to leave in the first place. Yet, one thing I have learned is no matter how far apart you are, friends don’t really go anywhere.

Happy Monday.

A Year of Change...

It is another gloomy day this morning with the added bonus of mass amounts of humidity. It feels nasty out there. It's the type of day where I begin to try to do something with my hair and I realize that the minute I walk out of the house, it'll fall flat so it's a ponytail day instead. The weatherman, having been wrong about the heavy and steady thunderstorms we were supposed to get yesterday looked slightly defeated this morning, almost like a puppy that has been scolded. He was far less bold with his predictions stating that while it was likely we'd get thunderstorms, we might not.

I have decided it might be quite nice to be a weatherwoman. Apparently, it's all about being vague. You can say things like, "There's a chance of rain," and "Parts of the area are seeing clouds." I mean, really, every day there's a 'chance' of rain: It might rain...it might not. It's a nice safe prediction to say that there are going to be clouds somewhere in the viewing area. It's a big viewing area.

But, as it stands, it's grey and nasty out there. It's definitely a stay-in-and-do-nothing-really-productive type of day. Unfortunately, since I'm at work, that might be a bit hard to do given that I am being paid to be productive.

Today actually marks the day when, a year ago, my friend and I packed up my little Toyota and left Los Angeles for the Great Midwest. Given everything that's happened in the past year, it seems much longer than that. In the time I've been gone from L.A., I've started this blog, learned to cook and bought a house. Depending on how you look at it, it may not seem like much but to me, they're components of my life that make up who I am.

It's amazing how much life changes in a short time. It seems like if you're born in L.A. you tend to stay there but if you move there later in life, you tend to enjoy it for a while and leave. When I first moved out, there was a steady wave of my college friends also slowly moving out. My only friend in the scary world of California was a former college roommate with whom I had been friendly but never known well. We had been joined as roommates by another friend. We had all been theatre majors. In the undergraduate school I attended, the theatre department was very small and very "exclusive.". I put the exclusive in quotes because, looking back, I realize it was exclusive in a fairly bad way. Overall, the atmosphere was arrogant and self-congratulatory. There have been some immensely talented people to come out of there but to survive and come out the way you went in...that was a feat. It was a place where if you tried to be slightly different, you would either be broken like a horse and tamed or you would be made miserable to the point in which you'd leave. I saw both happen in the three years I spent in the department. To this day, that phase of my life remains a muddled confusion. Doing theatre was what I loved but it was the only thing I was allowed to do. I felt as though I were sneaking away when I enrolled in other, non-theatre classes.

Needless to say, as a theatre major, you lived, breathed, slept and ate theatre. You also had little time for non-theatre activities. This meant that the only friends you really had time to socialize with were fellow theatre majors. It was a good thing and it was a bad thing. To this day, I regret some of the friendships that weakened because of this phase of my life. Ironically, while I keep in touch, mostly on Facebook, with some of my former theatre friends, without the bond of the stage, we really don't know each other any more. It's sad but we bonded over our 'craft', it was the tie that connected up. Most of my former close friends from my theatre days, like me, drifted away, having felt burned out from doing so much of it during college.

I digress. I do have a point, surprisingly. It is that when I did move to L.A., I was still fairly recently graduated from college and so reconnecting with former theatre friends, all in L.A. to try to break into movies or at least the theatre scene was easy. The problem that ended up happening was that we all 'came of age' at the same time. When I say that, it means we found the things in our lives that we truly loved. My former college roommate found love and a career and he ended up moving closer to his boyfriend. Another friend went back to the Midwest, still dabbling with theatre but still trying to figure out what she wanted. Then there was me; I'd found my writing. It was no longer screenwriting, it was novels. Over time, I realized there was no reason for me to be in L.A. I could write anywhere and then, slowly, the pull of home, of my family began to be stronger than the pull of L.A.

So, seven years after I'd moved out, I found myself coming back home. As I left, I was 'friended' on Facebook by two other former theatre friends who were just moving out to L.A. It's an interesting pattern; you leave and there's someone always waiting to fill in the gap. Los Angeles represents a city of dreams if you live far away. When I was in high school, I had a friend who was obsessed with moving to California. She was determined to go there and have a rock-and-roll-lifestyle. She had originally planned on marrying Bret Michael's from the band, Poison. Then she decided it was all Axl Rose from Guns n' Roses. Either way, the lure of L.A., the dream of California was all-encompassing.

As far as I know, she never did go out there. I think she actually lives in Cincinnati. Due to the fact that she went a little mental in high school and would talk about having me killed in notes to her friend, I'm really not that worried about where she is. I just hope she's happy and a little, um, less deranged.

I still find it ironic that I went there. For me, it was really just a question of me getting out of the Midwest, to see what else was there. It was between New York and L.A. I chose L.A. because it was cheaper. That's pretty much the only reason. I do wonder what path my life would have taken if I'd have gone the other direction. However, choice I made, to this day, feels like the right one. I'm just glad it led me back here. I had my years of seeing life from a different point of view, immersing myself in a city that's so diverse you can walk from one street to another and see a whole new culture spring up.

Yet...I'm glad I left. I love the peace of the Midwest, the fact that one day it can be stormy and humid and the next a crisp, Autumn day with the hint of frost on the wind. I love the fact that the trees are starting to change colour and that I can be one of those people to put a pumpkin out on my porch and welcome trick or treaters on Halloween night.

I'm not saying that there aren't days when I don't miss my former life. There are days when I miss it so much, it's hard to remember where I am in the world. That might be due to the fact that I stream KROQ, my beloved L.A. radio station, online. It's awfully disorientating to be working in Ohio but hear advertisements for restaurants, concerts and events in the L.A. area.

Whatever the reason, it's now officially been a year in which KROQ sent me off with Viva La Vida, one of the few Coldplay songs I can actually stand, as I drove out of the city and lost reception, moving away from L.A. on a new path. I'm still finding my way but I'm glad it brought me here.

Even if it did give me Nutley 2.0.

Happy Tuesday.