My Fucking Feelings
Getting something when you’re not ready never turns out good
New experience: Taking a shit in the middle of the night with a seven pound baby strapped to your chest, praying she doesn’t wake up.
These days I’m up at 4am. I strap a little human to my chest and go into the living room so mommy can sleep. I bounce on a giant rubber ball for a few minutes to make sure Logan is out cold before making coffee and taking a seat in the glass corner of our new loft to write.
I like it in this glass corner. It reminds me of a corner office, the kind where you look out and feel like you’ve climbed something. This corner is the only reason why we moved into this loft. Well, that and the fact that I can throw a quarter and hit my mom’s house. Having your mom right across the street when you have a newborn is priceless.
I grew up on these streets. Every time I open the blinds, I see the Hoover H we used to chalk on the side of the Glendale hills. How well it’s chalked is a direct reflection of the current school spirit. It’s completely faded and barely noticeable. It probably hasn’t been chalked in years, no longer a ritual. It makes me sad. High school was some of the best times of my life. We used to streak naked down that road. There’s a spectacular view up there no one really knows about. I’m sure it’s fenced off now.
T.S. Eliot says ” …and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.”
This resonates with me these days. I’ve returned to where I started, with a baby and a story. And I feel like I am discovering Glendale for the first time. I use Joesph Cambell’s Hero’s Journey often when working with clients. I’ve slayed my share of dragons in the last ten years and have returned to the village. Changed. I have more patience today. I am able to accept things instead of trying to control them. I trust myself more. All things I didn’t possess before my Hero’s Journey. I’ve come full circle. On a map, literally.
The other full circle this year was my revisit to screenwriting slash entertainment world. Well, I wouldn’t say it was a call. Maybe a gentle knock. If you don’t know, I used to be a screenwriter years before becoming a therapist and jumping on the fuck train. Wait, let me defend myself. I was posting “My Fucking Feelings” on Tumblr way before self help books went street. I also don’t plan to use “fuck” in any more of my books. It just felt right for my last one. I used to be a miserable fudge would not have worked, unless it was a children's book about a little piece of fudge who wasn’t happy. Okay, back to my reunion with the entertainment business.
I had the privilege of developing a show and sitting in pitch meetings this year. It reminded me of the dark days of “generals” in Hollywood. Generals are meet and greets you get after a studio or production company passes on your script but they thought you had a strong voice. Or more accurately, they want to make sure to meet you just incase you actually sell something and blow and everyone wants you. Then they have an in with you or at the very least, have on paper that you were on their radar. The whole town’s fear driven. I instantly felt the tug of my old approve seeking self dropping me into a chasing state. The kid who went to film school when everyone else was becoming lawyers and spent years writing dialogue and act breaks in the storage room of his family restaurant bar, lit up.
If you can’t relate, it felt like someone you used to think about in the shower calling you out of the blue and asking if you’re still single. When they didn’t even know you existed back then. Anyway, I had to take my own advice and ground myself. I had to pull from my Solid Self and not let the old tug snap me back like a rubber band. Because I’ve done a lot of fucking burpees over the last ten years and I’m not going back to who I used to be. That tug is powerful. I believe it can destroy people.
Getting something when you’re not ready never turns out good.
It doesn’t matter what it is. A dog. A relationship. A television show. You have to be ready or there will be a fumble. What’s challenging is knowing when you are ready and when you are not. Because we all believe we are ready, even when we’re not. Our truth can be eclipsed by desire. And this is what’s hard. To be honest with yourself. Many people get things they can’t handle and end up taking many steps back. Or starting over. That I don’t want. I know that.
So when it comes to my wanting, here’s what I do.
- Allow yourself to want.
If you don’t desire, you are not alive. You should want. Don’t limit your wants. Just ask yourself why you want it. If it lines up with your truth, want the fuck out of it.
2. Put action behind your wants (get obsessed)
Don’t just sit on the couch and cross your fingers, waiting for the universe to deliver your dream. You have to work your ass off for it. Turn it into a lifestyle. Not as a one month run after walking on fire at a Tony Robbin’s seminar. The action to achieve your want must be threaded into your life. It must become an obsession.
3. Let it go.
This is the hardest part. Yes, let it go. This doesn’t mean to give up or quit. There is a difference. Giving up means to stop when things get hard or you don’t feel like doing it. Letting it go means you’ve done everything you could and long enough until it’s no longer honest to you. Until it starts stripping your soul. Until it starts to disconnect you from yourself.
Example: I wrote screenplays for nearly a decade. I didn’t change careers because I got lazy or because it was hard. I changed careers because it wasn’t making me happy anymore. The process of it drained me. The fire was gone. But I kept pushing and forcing, getting more and more desperate and ruining my relationship with myself. I slowly lost myself and my life through the process. My relationship with screenwriting expired. If I kept going, it would have been strictly for my ego and because I didn’t believe I could do anything else (fear). Not because I was still in love with it — lining up with my truth.
So here I was again recently, tipping my toe back in a world I had broken up with. I went on some great meetings. Ended up writing a TV pilot, which turned out pretty good for someone getting back on a bike that had collected much dust. And nothing really happened. Maybe seeds were planted. I don’t know. I’m just now coming out of the haze and connecting back to me and my path again. Because letting go is a process. Not just a decision.
But here’s the good news aka my win. I didn’t go down. I didn’t snap back. I didn’t allow my Pseudo Self to take over. My want didn’t hijack my stance. And maybe that’s what growth is. Having a shaper radar to detect your truth + closing the gap on how fast you can really let something go.
Or maybe it was a test? Because if there’s anything I’ve learned in this life, it’s that the universe tests you. Not to fuck with you. It knows what’s best for you and if you’re not ready, it will protect you.
A newborn is always two seconds away from whaling at any given time. It’s like grilling in a kitchen with highly sensitive fire alarms too high to turn off.
So I’m punching keys like I’m tiptoeing through a minefield.
Anyway,
I know they say no one’s ever ready to have a child. You just do it and make it work. But I really don’t think I would have been a good dad any time before 46. I didn’t have the tools. I would have fucked up the child’s life as well as mine in the process. The tug I was talking about would have got me. Taken me down.
Changing diapers and making nipple shield runs on a Friday night feels right to me these days. It’s helped me reshuffle what’s truly important. It’s forcing me to be present and out of my head. And I did the math and I’m cool with it. I’ll be 64 when she’ll be asking me what I think of her prom dress. Her friends will be saying to her after school “Hey, your grandpa is here to pick you up.” And I’ll be there in my high top Vans and a side car attached to my Harley. But I’m good. Really. My friends don’t think so because I joke about it a little too much. But deep inside, I have peace.
With both of the above, (the brief knock of my old life & being a new dad at 46), I have acceptance. In a strange way, the brief knock from Hollywood and recently having a baby has really allowed me to trust the universe, more so than ever.
I can finally pull back and see what’s good for me instead of just wanting something really bad. I wasn’t able to do this before which is why I was suffering most of my life. I really believe the universe lays tracks. The people we collide with. The opportunities that are presented. Or not. And it’s up to you whether you want to take the ride. That will allow your story to unfold and for you to do what you’re meant to do. Or jump the tracks because you think you know better. And push a rock up a steep mountain. With no shoes.
If I do any projects in entertainment again, I want it to be right. I want to be ready. Not sure what that means yet. But I trust that I will know because it has happened.
And I’d rather be a good dad than a young dad. One lines up with my story (working with teenage addicts and discovering we live in a fatherless nation). The other doesn’t.
- Angry
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