Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Losers et al

I found that once I accepted I could no longer trust the people I once trusted implicitly I was left with an eerie calm.
I think when you try and fight something, when you want to change someone or something, it's exhausting. You'll pull your hair out and grow weary and every effort you make in either direction affects nothing, changes nothing.
So I've accepted defeat.
I don't want to change them.
I accept them as is and all they are not, all they will never be.
And they will read this and sneer and declare I've no talent for words and I'll just shrug my shoulders and say Ok, you win.
But I don't write for accolades, I don't love for reciprocity, I don't act for you, I live for me.
And I'm done letting any of them in anymore.
I'll never be enough, I'll never be the missing link.
Not in their eyes anyway.
Their eyes are hard, transfixed on past horrors and incapable of melting away the iciness that's slowly blinded them.
But I won't care.
Your disease is not in these genes.
I will not be poisoned by your bitterness.
I will not doubt because of your hesitancy.
You haven't won.
You're together, alone.

Everything's just fine

People are dishonest.
I don't mean specifically that everyone tells lies but people rarely are uncandidly honest.  Because to be that raw, to strip away all subtext and nuance and innuendo and just say what you actually mean takes guts. 
And it is my summation that we are all big insecure cowards.
Sadly, I add myself to that category.
But I'm self aware and I'm working on it.
I've decided if I can be uncandid with a rare few than I can work up the courage to be that way no matter who chooses to toss words my way.

The other day at work a coworker who I would say I trust, someone I thought I was pretty tight with, was extremely judgmental and condescending toward me.  That shocked me and it pissed me off.  And I already felt like I wanted to stab something repeatedly and I was in no mood for someone to treat me that way, let alone someone I thought was a friend.

But this is error number one: just because someone is a friend, a family member, a lover, a co worker, does not in fact mean they will treat you any differently than a complete stranger.

We think that if someone loves us, if they care for us or spend time with us or really know us then they will treat us differently than the general hostility of the indifferent world.

FALSE.

People are selfish.  People are fickle, emotional, inconsistent, self serving, pious, hypocritical, ego driven, quick to judge, manic, moody bastards.
And those are just the ones who care about you.

Do you know why we get upset?  Because people let us down.
They judge when we expect them to understand.  They condescend when we anticipate compassion.  They aren't there when we need them, they don't believe the best, they aren't quick to forgive, they won't always return texts and always, always, always, we're left feeling disappointed, feeling bitter, feeling distrusting.
Because they're not who we thought they were.

But my dear one, they never were.  They  never are.

The freeing truth is that no one is who we think they are.
Because we are all dirty little liars.
We are much too cowardly to say what we think.
We are far too insecure to be the person we truly are because we're too busy portraying the person we think we should be.

My coworker who reacted like a bitch when I told her something personal knew right away something was up with me.  I didn't have the energy to pretend I was fine when I wasn't so I let my disdain known: by passively remaining silent.  The truth is I'm generally, under most normal, day to day circumstances, a bubbly happy -go- lucky person.  And people expect consistency.  They think that once they've figured you out, once they've labeled you, boxed you up and put you on the shelf, that's the way you are and any deviation from that is subject to scrutiny.  And years ago I might have feigned effervescence just to keep from ruffling any feathers.  But I didn't care about the box people had me in.  I was in the livid box and I was damned if I was going to paint a smile across the rage that was fuming behind my lips.

Eventually she commented that I was "acting differently" and still I ignored her.  I wouldn't tell her I was mad at her and hurt by what she said.  She is so frightfully timid and shy I felt like if I told her it would really upset her.  She is the type of girl to cry when we run out of whipped cream so I certainly didn't anticipate her handling me telling her how pissed I was at her insensitivity.  But she knew I was upset.  And why?  Because when we say or do something we know is unloving it's painted on our insides.  So the next day when she said "I thought you were mad at me" what she really meant was I knew you were mad at me.

Why do we waste so much energy pretending things we all know are lies?
Aren't you as fucking tired as I am?

I can't stand it when people are passive aggressive with me.
You have a problem, then tell me.
And you know what, I'll work on tossing aside my sensitivity to how you might take the truth and just throw it out there.  Because regardless of what I do or don't do, whether I just smile nicely or sigh in annoyance, you will think what you want to think, you will not do the things you say you will and judge me for the things I don't do and I can't waste any more of my life worrying about the lot of YOU.

I have some other important things to do.
Like go to work at the coal mines with all the other nameless nobody's and rejects.
But hey, at least I'll be damn honest about it.
And the next time you piss me off you won't have to ask because I'll make sure and tell you.
And I'll say, No, actually everything is not fine.
But you already knew that.....didn't you?

Monday, December 20, 2010

Forget me nots

I got a phone call from a friend who, in all honesty, has gotten under my skin a few too many times the past several months.  No matter how many times I tell myself, They mean well, it still stings when someone says something that feels uncharacteristically hurtful.  Words are unbelievably powerful things.  And this friend in their succinct way told me this eve, "You're always so nice to me and I just wanted you to know how much I appreciate that.  I guess I just needed to hear your smiles tonight."

Nice felt like a comical word to choose considering there have been times of late where I bite my tongue to keep from telling this person where they can shove their bias and judgment.  But I grimmace and I grumble and force myself to be loving because if you can't love the bastards you call friends how the hell are you ever gonna learn to love your enemies?

I shudder to think.

The truth is, I almost didn't answer the phone tonight.  I feel sort of ashamed to admit it but I was sitting on the couch with my book, my hot chocolate, the quiet of solitude and I honestly didn't feel like being disturbed, especially by this particular person.  But I had literally just been reading about love and ignoring the efforts of someone reaching out to me for my own selfish endeavors hardly felt the embodiment of love, in its ideal purity.  So then to hear that they kind of needed a little dose of the love I do try and genuinely send their way felt very poignant somehow. 

We underestimate our value. 
We lack comprehension over our profound impact on those around us.
And conversely we lack acceptance of the effect hate possesses as it inevitably invades our sensitivity.

Case in point.

An email I read once then promptly deleted months ago still haunts me.

I really only read it once.  It was so seething, so grotesquely ugly that my instinct upon finishing the last word was a quick tap of the key delete because the only way to respond to such a violent attack is to remove it, never to engage.  The only other time I can recall having such a swift delete reaction was when someone left me a voicemail message telling me they wanted nothing to do with me ever again, simply because I was and there was nothing to do, nothing to say but delete.

The problem with the swiftness of delete is that it doesn't erase the words that were just burned into your brain.  You can remove the evidence, you can speak new words of truth, of love, but our damned memories are like mine fields where unexpected bombs blow up when you least expect it.
I had a dream recently and the words from that email were being spoken to me again.
It's amazing to me my ability to recall with such lucidity the exact words that were used to try and hurt me.  You could almost see the wicked smile painted across my senders face as they typed up with thorough verboseness the evidence against me.

And why would it matter what someone I don't even know thought of me?
It didn't.  It doesn't.  And yet their words. 
Words matter.
Lies or truth they matter.
They impact, they alter, they find their way into our minds and wriggle their way into tiny burrows buried deep into the reccesses of the memories we forgot we remembered.

So the parallel?

I chose not to remember the feelings with which my friend stirred in me when he said less than loving things and instead chose to act outside of how I felt, to act in love, to speak kindly even though the bitch in me was screaming to be heard.
And he noticed.
And he was appreciative.
And somehow he was drawn to me and sought me out when he was feeling less than fantastic.

And the bitch who unleashed her venom on me?
I would choose to ignore the feelings that made me want to doubt, to accept defeat, to lose faith, to lose hope.  And instead I would believe the best, hope for things unseen, overcome evil with good.


Because it would be so much more satisfying if people remembered me for how good I made them feel rather than for how wretched they truly are.

Friday, December 10, 2010

I love therefore I'm Resa

I had to love in order to be.

We all have talents and gifts and the one I was sincerely learning this year was how to love.

I seemed to be surrounded at work, in the theatre, with new and old friendships by women whose lives I managed to somehow influence.  I have an assertive personality.  I'm pushy and forward and bold.  And it always felt good when my lack of silence or behaving demurely was actually a good thing.  I influenced lives with my big mouth and that gave me purpose.  It brought a smile to my crimson lips.

And I thought about my inability to maintain a relationship (my boyfriends always needed to go find themselves or marry someone else or just go home to the familiar) but I began to wonder if the reason there were so few men in my life was because they distracted me from my purpose: I was here to bless, encourage, nourish the spirits of other women and unleash their buried boldness by accosting them with mine.
And men, ooh boy, men were a beast I seemed unable to resist. Satan knows my weakness, I told a friend once to which she replied, And it ain't chocolate.  I love with such intensity that I will easily sacrifice myself on the altar of self if it will make the man I love smile.
When a passion is uncontrollable it is dangerous, moreover, it deters, it becomes a hindrance.
I told my mother once that in a nutshell I'm helpless to beautiful men who need me.
How can I think of my own needs when those adoring eyes look to me pleading for escape?
So my lack of boundaries with men who inevitably take more than they give leaves me susceptible to great heartache and tear stained sheets.
But more importantly it debilitates me from strengthening anyone else.
So maybe the men who vanished weren't merely great fools, maybe it really was me.  Maybe those who held me back had to be removed so I could learn to get out of my own way, so I could learn that the overwhelming desire in my heart to love wasn't meant for just some man. 
Maybe this love was meant for a great many others. 
Maybe it was just too intense a thing to offer one person.

Clear as mud

I do surprising things when I drink.

Once a girlfriend and I calculated how many guys we'd had interludes with and tried to factor in how many would have happened if we didn't count the ones that happened at night.  We decided we would have been very single and without a lot of amusing dating stories.

The other night after a few cocktails I drunk emailed.

I've matured past drunk dialing or drunk texting and moved on to drunk emailing. It was almost like I was possessed and even sort of looking down on myself watching me and the whole time thinking what are you doing?  I'm sure that when he reads it he's going to wonder where the hell that came from and why I felt the need to suddenly share an amusing story about a squirrel.

There's this guy at my work who is engaged.  Him and his fiancee are revoltingly cute. She came in the other day to visit him and they stood at the counter making googily eyes at each other.  It reminded me of a tall stranger on the other side of a counter I once knew.  It also made me realize how jaded I've become.  The other day as I walked around couples at the mall, I looked at them distrustingly.  I doubted their fidelity, their sincerity.  I feel like Prince Charming took something from me I hadn't even noticed I'd lost: he took a portion of my optimism.  In the span of very few moons, I'd become a realist.  Somewhere the naively hopeful optimist of years past had died and somewhere between her and the jaded, cynical pessimist was me.

And at first, this revelation kind of pissed me off.  That son of a bitch was making me doubt a lot of things, second guess my own heart, my own fate.
And that was my fault, not his.  I let him play that role, I let him mistakenly stand on that pedestal.
And maybe the truth was, removing that pedestal was a good thing.
Maybe seeing people for the ugly, flawed, shallow beasts that they are was the biggest surprise of all.
Because somewhere, buried inside, I could love the monsters.
And that made me a pretty stellar woman.

Hello, My name is....

"I am someone who is looking for love, real love, ridiculous, inconvenient, consuming, can't live without each other love." 

We are what we do
We care about what we spend time doing
We identify ourselves by the people around us.

I've spent the last decade as a performer, as an actor and a singer.  It's what I do, it's how I've learned to use my gifts, to share in an art I adore.  But this year I have only performed in one show and it was a role I was cast in last year.  I haven't even had a desire to audition for things this year.  I have auditioned for some but I can count on one hand the number of auditions I went to.  People have asked me if I'm working on a project right now or have one coming up.  Recently a girl said she saw my movie trailer and asked me how many movies I've been in.  And I had this moment where I sort of forgot that I had even filmed a movie.  I told a close friend over cocktails, I've spent the past decade as an actor, it's what I've always done and I don't even seem to have a desire to do it anymore.  That's really strange.  I'm an actor.  I'm a singer.  That's what I am.  But what happens when what you do is no longer who you are?  What happens when you become someone else?


I told a psychologist who came into Starbucks once that the three great loves of my life were all avid tea drinkers and while I was with them I drank tea all the time but when I'm alone I never make myself tea.  I have always prefered coffee to tea.  I asked him what he thought it meant, mostly in jest, trying to make the 'what does it mean, doctor?' sort of remark.  But without hesitation, without a second thought, he told me to stop trying to change myself for the men I'm with.  Just be you and enjoy what you enjoy, stop trying to become something else for them.
I remember laughing out of nervousness. 
It was jarring that something I'd never understood was so blatantly obvious to a complete stranger.


And I realized in some way that was the shift, that was the loss, the mourning I was experiencing.  It was less about the players and more about my identity to that player.  My role within my story had in effect been connected to these different people and once those people were removed it left me dazed.  It wasn't the romantic notion I'd latched onto; it wasn't that it had to be them or what will I do without them? or any other sort of beautifully tragic romantic ideal.  No, it was much more concrete and simple than all that: without them to pour all this passion into, where was I to put it all?

Some people have their work, others their hobbies, their arts, their credit cards, their affinities for chocolate.  And I still hadn't yet figured out what my outlet was.  Maybe I'd have many.  Maybe there'd be no more great loves and my road was taking me somewhere unexpected.

But I had to stop and consider, if something I'd started an overwhelming passion for in high school, then went on to major in college and spend years and hours of my time devoted to it could suddenly, just like that, halt as an overwhelming passion, surely, something very different was in store.  And it must be waiting, right around the corner, even as I sit here on my bed, with my little pink laptop.

I was done trying to be something for so many others.  I had the luxury of being whatever I wanted because there was no one laying next to me expecting me to be something I'd convinced them I was.
Yes, there were some nights I spent huddled in a tight ball from the cold of one beating heart.
But ever always, with each new day, the sun brought with it warmth enough.
And I couldn't shut out parts of me anymore. 
Not even for a pair of dashing eyes.
The cost was just too great.
And it felt really satisfying on the other side, feeling like me again.
Feeling totally Resa.

"The most exciting, challenging and significant relationship of all is the one you have with yourself.  And if you find someone to love the you you love, well, that's just fabulous."