Transition!

TRANSITION! Oh my God! Sometimes I have to be smacked over the head with a big blunt truth over and over until I'm able to see it. Sure, I've been rejected a few times. Big Deal. I'm in transition – IN MY LIFE! That's at least part of what's going on. I'm moving from one book to the next or to wherever, and I never quite know how to act when things like that are going on. It's about time I acknowledged it. Whoever Anonymous is, thank you. It wasn't until I read your comment after I Don't Wanna that I realized this discomfort is mostly about transition. It should have been obvious. The name of my blog is In Between. I know. What can I say? I think part of my obliviousness is that I'm too deep and brooding for my own good. I take myself way, way too seriously, and, as Bestie A will tell you, I just forget that I get weird when I'm in transition.

I'm thinking back to when it first made itself known to me, this personality twist I have when going from one place to the next. I'm going to try to narrow it down to writing fiction. I'm certain if I really looked closely at my life in general, I'd see that from the time I left the hospital with my parents, I've never been okay with change.

There were a few places I hit during this process where I really had to shift from one huge phase to the next, where I needed to take it to the next level or move into a new place entirely. The book spans 18 years. Of course it contains some change.

But I like a clear picture. I like a map. I like a nice, clean set of blueprints to get me from Point A to Point B, preferably with all obstacles listed in intricate detail. I am anal retentive and extremely controlling. If I'm not sure how I'm supposed to behave in a certain circumstance, I get very uncomfortable. There was a very dark time in my life where I was convinced that if I could just get a three-second glimpse into my future, just to see where I was going, I would then be able to act accordingly and everything would be OKAY. Really. I thought THAT was the solution.

When I'm writing and suddenly the road becomes foggy and the destination unclear, I get this feeling in my arms, like the words are actually building themselves up in there, all clamoring to get out, except I don't know which order I'm supposed to put them in. They're stuck inside me and they let me know they feel very, very claustrophobic. I get sick to my stomach and uncomfortable in my skin. Suddenly, as you've seen, I'm ultra sensitive and nothing is right. My nerve endings are on the outside of my body. My world is full of dissatisfaction and unease. I'm certain it's never going to be any different. Then all of a sudden, I'm doing really silly things with my work. Like whining in public.

Another example: There comes a point where my main character, Jack, really has his heart shattered. I mean destroyed. I could see him clearly, sitting in a bar, drinking himself into a stupor. I even had this amazing scene in my mind with this abstract sort of ethereal nurse stranger. It didn't make it into the final cut, but it was a fantastic flippin' scene, even before I wrote it.

Unfortunately, because I was in my weird transition place, I thought I had to get him there. I spent an entire afternoon – probably close to four hours - looking at parking structures in LA on Google Earth. What the hell?

Finally Bestie A said, “What the hell? Why are you looking for parking places? Just put him in the bar. You're the writer!”

To which I said, “Oh yeah!”

I have to be reminded. Like my lovely little Anonymous did. I get so wrapped up in where I am that I don't see what I'm actually doing. Most of the time it would be some bestie or Danny Boy who would smack me across the creativity with some harsh but true words (and sometimes very loudly). After a while it just became, "Quite looking for parking places!"

I don't know if you've ever been pregnant, but if you have, you may understand when I tell you that when I'm sitting in the middle of the crazy, if I'm lucky enough remember at some point that I'm actually crazy, it seems to alleviate something. As soon as I realized yesterday that I am actually sitting in purgatory right at this very moment, I could breath a little easier. So THAT'S why I'm feeling so yucky!

There's this other thing that's nagging at me, a quiet little thought in the back of my mind that's getting louder and louder as I reread what I've written so far.

I miss them almost every day. Maybe it's silly, but I want to see them again, to be inside their crazy great heads. I love them like they are my family. I still listen to music and hope that a song catches me in that certain way, where all of a sudden they're dancing in front of my eyes, egging me on to describe for everybody what it is I'm seeing. I have two big wishes. The first would be that I could read it with fresh eyes. (Isn't there some pill I can take that will temporarily sweep away the past two years but not cause any permenant damage?) The second is that I could just give her a call. Every time something amazing happens all I want to do is call her and say, “It's happening, baby! We did it!”

I suppose part of transition is letting go. It's not just about going somewhere. It's about leaving somewhere too.