Correlations

Is there a direct correlation between my level of boredom and how much I write blog posts? Or maybe it's a correlation between my level of happiness, of the balance of feeling like I don't need to write things because I am living them?

Maybe none of that is true, and I'm just trying to be better at writing on here because I know it's good for me - and because when I look back on them in who-knows-how-many-year's time, they'll mean something different to where I am then. They'll be a reminder of what was, where my journey has taken me.

It's not all bad, but it's not all good either. I'm struggling at the moment to be my usual positive self. Is that usual? Is that who I am?

I think so. I think I am the one usually reassuring others, who is vehemently determined for things to go right - or that they will work themselves out. I think in my soul I still believe that. I've often figured that if things aren't going right, it means it's not the end.

And anyway, there isn't really an end, is there? There's the end of the day, week, month, year - the end of the dictated word we have used to capture a certain amount of time - but there's no end to living until you die. It might sound morbid but I don't mean it to, if anything it's a good thing. It means that there is always a tomorrow, a next time. There is always the opportunity to turn things around if you try.

My problem is, I know that, but I am really tired. Too tired to try? Maybe. It feels that way when I wake up sometimes, that I just want to stay in bed and sleep the day away.

I don't think I'm depressed, maybe just sprinkled with a hint of despair at the moment... and it's very hard to always be the one trying to cheer yourself up.

I realised that today. That I'm usually the one cheering myself up, and cheering other people up. Like I'm always the one reassuring Ry that things are going to work out, that we'll get to where we need to go. 

But I'm so busy saving others from drowning - or at least I think I am, when they let me in and tell me the truth of how they're feeling - that I don't think I ever let anyone else help me? I'm so used to being a strong swimmer, I don't really notice myself slipping under. 

Again, I'm being overdramatic. I don't think I stay under for long... Just enough to feel a sense of helplessness for a few days before I take in oxygen again. Like when you were a kid, pretending to be dead in a pool to see who would notice, and then splutter and gasp for breath when you couldn't hold your breath any longer.

I'm not really sure where this blog post is going. Probably nowhere. The only thing I'm really thinking is, I hope I come out of this funk soon, cause it's not helpful to anyone.

This Is Not What You Think It Is. It's Worse.

I have been listening (an audiobook) to a book recently called Regrets of the Dying. It's very good, a collection of stories from people who are dying, experienced death close to them, or who have had near-death experiences and have a new lease for life.

Sometimes it makes me sad, for the stories I hear and the lives that have been wasted. Other times it makes me a bit confused, or I question the regret, because I can't really relate to it - often from people who wish they were more confident, or put themselves first, which I know I already do. But always, it makes me think.

It makes me think about my own life and my own future, which I'm hoping is still long and prosperous. It makes me think about the fact that maybe death could come - for anyone I love, not just me - at any point, and what that means.

What it means, is not to waste any time. I think that's an easy thing to say when you're in the moment, the whole 'live each day as if it was your last' thing, and very easy to forget - to let it slip away... But it's kind of true. So often we forget the small things, the tiny pleasures that make life exciting and interesting. Equally, when we are so bogged down in the small things or the monotony, we forget to live. 

To go out and experience things, to do things that make us happy or bring us joy in those fleeting moments. The truth is, no one lives in the past or the future. Life happens in the present, in the constant, in each breathing moment until the thing that you are currently doing isn't the thing you are doing anymore, and you're doing something else.

Maybe that's why meditation is so good for you, because it's the presence of mind that you need, the here and now and the reminder that these are the most important things.

For instance, my reality currently is writing this blog. But in half an hour this will be done, it will be in the past, and my present will be on the train on my journey home from work. This afternoon, it was (cheekily) applying for other jobs.

Last night, it was seeing the Sibs and Dad for Smiley's 24th birthday dinner (ahead of his actual birthday this weekend). Before that, on the weekend, it was seeing Bing and Z at their new flat and having champagne in Dad's little weird hotel room (in order to taste it before the wedding).

Before that, on Saturday, it was seeing Nothing but Thieves - and before that, the week before last, it was seeing FOB. Concerts really make me think about reality in that way... they are so overwhelming, lights and noise and bodies, and then when they are over you kind of just have these blurry memories of dancing and singing and... it's gone. 

Maybe that's why - when those things that we enjoy, that we feel such elation for, are so fleeting - it's so important that the time we are spending each and every day doing the same thing (aka a job, living, commuting, cooking, eating) is used wisely. That you love it, or at least like it, and wake up thinking that it's worth doing for another day. It's worth spending those precious hours, not knowing when it could all be over, on whatever day-to-day life task you find yourself doing at that present time, because it's something you enjoy.

Or at least, don't hate.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, listening to this book has helped me decide something.

I need a new job.

Oh, How the Years Have Flown. Part Three: 2023

Finally, we are beginning to catch up with ourselves. I kick myself every time I do this kind of thing, because writing these posts reminds me how cathartic it is and how good for my general stream of consciousness. So many things wouldn't be forgotten if I had a better sense of updating the blog - it's so interesting reading over my 10-year-ago thoughts and feelings, and being able to date things as and when they happened.

Times have changed, in so many ways, and yet here I am... At my core, still the very same person I have always been. Apart from now hopefully with a bit more sense and clarity. Who knows, give me another few years and that probably won't be true either.

But, we move on! To Part Three: 2023 (how apt)

January

The long process that I started B.J.M (aka actor name B.H) back in the summer of 2021 finally came to fruition - we filmed Monster. In a beautiful, freezing cold house in the final week and a half of January in Yorkshire. It was so utterly cold, but also one of the best experiences of my life so far. I hadn't originally been signed on as the Director (just the writer) but when the other director B.J.M was speaking to dropped out, she asked if I wanted to do it with her.

There was no other response apart from Yes. So we came up with the shot-list together and I helped her with producing it (kind of), choosing actors, props, costumes and the like. She produced with Papa Lui in truth, he was there the whole time, but while we were on set I took over as the main director and she was our Leading Actor. It was such a good shoot, one of the best I've ever done in my (relatively short) career, and I am so excited for it to be ready for people to see.

In fact, I'm expecting the final film to be ready any day now. I'll keep you posted (and actually, I promise that this time I will).

Our hope is to take it to festivals and do a friends / family screening of it. Fingers crossed those will be organised before the end of the year - it's been a process but I've enjoyed having it in the background while everything else goes on.

February

I worked at the Pasta place (started last October as an extra way to make some money alongside the freelance life) and also Ry and I made our wedding rings. Yippee!

March

This month was taken up mostly by the Cinder-Horror film, which I worked on with B.J.M again. She produced and asked me to come on as a PM to help her with all the production admin (it was a lot), especially as we had overseas execs coming. It was a bit of a wild one, with night shoots and rain shoots and lots of travelling. Even though I wasn't doing anything creative, I really enjoyed it.

Plus, it meant B.J.M and I only got closer, becoming very good friends. Love that.

April / May

Back to Pasta-land, plus a three week trip around the Isles to see Green Am. / Mum / Dad in their various locations. While visiting Dad we also went to see our wedding venue again and he came with us, which meant we got to show him around. It was nice seeing how involved he was getting with it (unusual to say the least).

June

This was a big one - The Action Film. Working as the 3rd for the month. Another great job and one that I would happily do it again even though it was incredibly chaotic and we had one dangerous moment. Haven't managed to work with that team again since but I'm hoping there will be something in the future. Depends if they think I'm worth bringing on again, it's all in other people's hands at this point... I can only be me.

Then again, the director did ask for me to come and 1st on a pick up day in October. Unfortunately the pick up day was cancelled (for multiple reasons) so I didn't get to step up and do that, but it was nice to be thought of.

July

More Action Film and then the Holiday - which started out Cursed but ended up being one of the best I've had. Ry and I went with Bob and Jye, and it was such a nice bonding experience for the four of us (two couples). I love them. I loved that holiday, even though for the first 48 hours it seemed that the world didn't want us to go.

Long story short, never miss your flight, and never travel from Luton Airport.

August

Another big one - The Comedy Romance. As the 1st, and the only member of my team out of a crew of 25. It was utterly exhausting, and there were a few people who just kept trying to drag the ship down and complain about everything. This one made me realise, maybe I don't want to AD for the rest of my life. No one wants to be the bad guy, and no one wants a 2nd AC screaming at them for half an hour, suggesting they're the devil / racist / brainwashed... 

It's a bit like Stolkholm Syndrome, this filming stuff. At the time, I was so assured that I wanted to get out - that I wanted my freedom, my weekends, my work / life balance and time with friends and family back. That I wanted stability.

Now that I have it, I'm bored senseless.

Surely there's got to be a middle ground?

September

A visit to Belly and her Mum (she was just born) to look after the two of them while Mum was recovering from the recent labour, plus a visit to my Mum and NT (NT who has been in the hospital since July and is still there after a broken knee and two mini strokes... we keep aware in case there are updates, but in a way no-news is good-news).

October

And that takes us to this month. Last month, barely. Where I started the new full-time Office Job, something that I didn't want to have to do but didn't really have a choice in... considering that it turned out three of our internal walls in the flat were basically made of rotten, mouldy cardboard. Que the silverfish and ant infestations.

One insurance claim and an eye-watering amount of money later, we have a new kitchen, new bathroom and new living room floor... but we've also depleted the wedding account so severely of funds that this full time, boring as anything job is the only thing I could do to keep us afloat. Despite not wanting it, I need this. We need to make some money, or the wedding we're planning to have will be a husk of its true self... So here I am. In the office again, looking at spreadsheets.

Although I have already started mooching about on the internet for WFH options... I don't mind doing the job, I just don't want to be in an office from 9-6 with a 1 hr commute each way. I'm done with that life.

Three weeks into the New Job, I also disappeared for a week to make a Kids Film with a Horse. That was fantastic. Another one I wrote and directed for B.J.M who produced and acted... I think we make a pretty good team. I fucking love directing, I can't lie about that. When it's my own words as well... it's everything I want.

It's what I need to start going after. Properly.

But soon. Not right now. One step at a time... for now, I'll steal moments in the office to write blog posts, and wait for Christmas.

Oh, How the Years Have Flown. Part Two: 2022

We move on, during another 5:30 PM sneak at the office, to PART TWO: 2022

Where to begin? You'll have to forgive the fact that my memory isn't great for some things.

This reminds me - November 2021 I worked as a film director for the first time, on the micro-budget film about flying Dinosaurs. I was then supposed to AD on the film that was shot on a a WW2 ship (in December) but instead the Dinosaurs film gave me COVID and I stayed home.

January was slow, apart from the two night scratch show we did for SB (the one-woman-ish play) which was a lot of fun and something quite different to the usual.

Otherwise I think the most impactful thing I did in January and February was work on Ghost Film 2 (not its real title) as the Writer and Director - and also AD, which was not ideal but somehow apparently we made it work without burning everything to the ground. It also meant I got the practice in as a Director, which was fun, and I think I did a pretty good job.

Even though - after editing - the film came out pretty naff. Can't be helped, given the time frame.

March into April was taken over by the Worst of All Bad Productions, for which I was a PA making a measly £1000 for the whole month. 30 days. Incredible that I decided to take it, but I thought that I might end up making some good contacts and that it would be good for me.

It was not. The whole thing crashed and burned and I would never, ever work for them again. 

But April 17th - Easter Sunday - became one of the best days of my life (let alone the best day of the year) because after 8 long years of being together, Ry got down on one knee and proposed. That's right - we got engaged!

With a beautiful, gold ruby ring. I wept hard, for about five minutes. Genuinely. On the beach at 9pm with the world and the city looking down on us, when he got down on my knee I said out loud: "Are you joking?" (He was not). I don't remember a lot of his speech but I know it was amazing and instead, I started hyperventilating and then started to cry - and I sank to my knees in the sand so we were both kneeling in the sand - 

and I cried so long and so hard that I had to pull back off his shoulder and explain that I was happy, that this was the most amazing and wonderful thing, but that I genuinely could not believe it was happening. It felt like a dream, like a scene from a movie that was happening to someone else at some other time... It was something I had seen before, on screen, and something that I had imagined but never truly believed could happen to a person, let alone to me.

I managed to pull myself together after about five minutes; Ry asked "Is that a yes?" and that made me laugh. Like, yeah, sure I hadn't technically said Yes yet - but surely the explosion of snot and tears and the hyperventilating would have shown that this was the only thing I wanted in the whole world? But I said Yes anyway, because of course I did, and then I asked him what colour it was because it was so dark on the beach where we were that I couldn't see it properly.

After that, we strolled along for about an hour and went to a pub to celebrate. We stole the glasses our drinks came in. We told everyone the next morning - for that night, it was something just for ourselves.

To this day, a year and a half later, I look down at my ring and think it's the most unbelievably beautiful, shiny thing I've ever seen in my life. I find myself staring at it a lot - or holding it up into the sunlight to admire it.

We spent a lot of May wedding planning and the like. I worked on a film-video-game job where I met lots of people that I would now consider friends, and definitely good contacts.

It's difficult to remember exactly what happened over the summer of 2022. Nothing particularly big, after the beginning of the year. Probably lots more small jobs, potentially trips home and maybe one holiday... It's all a bit of a blur.

The biggest things I remember about the end of 2022 were my trip to SA in November - a safari trip unlike anything I have ever experienced, which I am dying to do again at some point in the future - and the fact that we had Christmas with Ry's family. Which was manic, and I got ripped to shreds by the cats, so wasn't exactly the 'restful' Christmas I was hoping it would be... but still, the kids had fun, and that's what counts.