When I am in the throws of an anxiety attack or have fallen into the depths of my depression, one of the loops that spins me out, that takes me away from the present, from the things I love is the constant second guessing of every life decision I’ve ever made including many of the ways I identify who I am.
Was moving to Illinois a mistake? What would have happened if I had stayed in Illinois? What if I had stayed at Marketplace Foods in Rice Lake? Where would I be today if I had never given up coaching tennis? What would my world be like if I had gone out to Seattle in the early 90s? Would things have turned out different if we had been more conservative with our finances going into the recession? The questions never end. They never stop forming in my brain. I spin, and get more depressed, more tired until I’m sick to my stomach however…
…everything changes when you give me a camera, a crew, a script, and an editing suite. The anxiety fades to a murmur, the terrible questions go away, my depression recedes, and I can breathe again. When I am on set, or in my editing suite, I am my authentic self, I am who I am fashioned to be, I know who I am and it feels great to be that version of me.
When I am making a film I no longer feel hopeless, I no longer feel lost, I no longer want it all to end, and I no longer feel broken. When I am making a movie, my only desire is to make it better than the project that came before the one I’m working on, and to learn something new in the process.
Though I’ve never made a dime filmmaking, I am still a filmmaker, and that is something my illness can never take from me.
Uncommon Karma 