Chapter Three - Part One - Rocks in the Field

I'm sitting here looking at my resistance to screenwriting. It's such a big sucky clod in my pretty empty field. Is it a rock, I wonder, and not soil at all? Banging away at my resistance to screenwriting may at, age 45, not be the best use of my energy and skills. I hate giving up on things. I am still mad at myself for not making my marriage full of domestic violence and emotional abuse actually work out. No matter that it was clear it was never going to work out, I still hate feeling like a quitter. There are still remorseful moments even though my peace quotient is 100% better, and I love and am attracted to husband number two whole-heartedly. I just hate being a quitter. Though to be honest, I've also quit a number of occupations and friendships over the past year, that somehow, suddenly I realized were never going to be what I thought they should be, and so quitting and turning in a new direction IS AN OPTION TO CONSIDER.

I actually had to write an email to a good friend of mine who is a wonderful psychologist to ask him if he thought I was going crazy because I was rapidly dropping so many things out of my life. He assured me that this behavior was a normal part of the process of realizing my true self. And, I have a quote above my computer that says, "When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be. When I let go of what I have, I receive what I need." - The Tao.

I am beginning to be able to wrap my head around this notion. For so long I have invested more heavily in the past than in the present or future. I have hung onto things, people, and ways of being like a freak hoarder, so that I could barely walk into the present without dragging these things unconsciously on my shoulders and hips. I said I would do it, so I'm gonna do it is the motto I had even when I got signals (like having my head pounded against the floor -- hello?) that sticking to something bad was futile and degenerate in every way.

Why, I have wondered, would I do this to myself? I have been too afraid of change for some reason. And, yet I'm a natural risk-taker, too. I've moved across the country several times, I've tried new and challenging things, I've walked away from many things and towards many others. Yet, there are essential things that I've stood by, that turned out to be bad ass stupid. It seems I may be addicted to pain. I'll tell you this, that if I feel a requisite amount of pain then I tend to be bound to that pain in a way that is harder for me to break the bond to that than, say, if something is boring or annoying.

Is this too psychological? Let me say then that, metaphorically speaking, I've finally started throwing the rocks out of the field. That's what tilling and plowing are for, after all. The rocks are plentiful, and not bad in and of themselves, but they're doing nothing to make the soil better for tender, young seedlings. I haven't yet decided whether screenwriting is the rock itself, or if it is merely a clod that is around the rock of something else holding me back from finally planting a high yield crop.