Full Circle

I think I’ve put a finger on why I’ve been so out of sorts lately. Things have begun to come full circle.

A year ago, we were just getting knee deep into “Lloyd’s Prayer,” a life-changing production for me in so many ways, which seem to become more poignant and more weighted with every passing day. I was working “The Real Inspector Hound” as production manager and on “Hamlet.” And I was directing for the second year at the USC One Act Playwriting Festival. Oh, yeah, and the Slamdance reading. Damn. April 2005 was busy.

So many things fell apart during that time, so many difficulties and challenges and frustrations. It was an extremely difficult, rewarding, inspiring, disheartening, heart-breaking, heart-lifting time.

It was also when I realized that my marriage was crawling to its end. I knew it was over but I was hanging on because I had promised to stick with counseling until August. I don’t remember why August was so important but I had agreed to it so I figured I would stick by it.

Then I clicked on the very thing I clicked on today – the registration for the 48 Hour Film Project. My friend, Perry, had encouraged me for years to do it and the one year I did get accepted, I couldn’t do it because we were opening “Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All For You” at the Ark that same weekend. Could not do both, although I considered it.

When I clicked on that registration page a year ago, it was the sound that ended everything. My ex threw a fit, trying to find a way for me not to do this project. I still don’t understand what his anger was at what I was doing. Well, that’s a lie. I do understand parts of his anger. But, at the time, it just felt like one more thing he was trying to take away from me, one more thing that he felt I couldn’t do, shouldn’t do, wasn’t capable of doing. So I was determined to do it. He fought me hard. Then he began to take ownership of the project, which pissed me off even more. Don’t tell me what a bad thing this is then try to make it yours and not mine. I told him time and again, this is my project and it has to be mine alone. Yes, dear, our project. No, MY PROJECT. Right, our project.

As the date to shoot crept closer, I kept thinking, I don’t want him there. He’s always a problem on a set with me because I didn’t feel respected by him. It put me in a position of weakness instead of authority. I could not have that. I started to gather my cast/crew – lots of people from the Ark. Settled on a core group – Carlos, Erik, Chairman, Ann, JoBeth and a handful of other possibilities. The one I didn’t want was the one most determined to be there.

The hardest thing I ever had to say to my ex was “I don’t want you on the set.” June 21, 2005. It sounded so harsh, so childish, so petulant (my favorite word today). But it said everything that needed to be said. Or maybe I said, “I can’t have you on my set.” Doesn’t really matter. It was the truth and it was so much larger than that. The set was my life and I was asking him to not be in it anymore.

That was Tuesday. The 48 Hour Film Project began that Friday. It was the hardest and the most fulfilling weekend of my life. Hard because I really didn’t miss my ex being there. And that, as hard as it may be to believe, broke my heart. He should have been there. I should have wanted him there. He should have been able to allow me what I needed to do this. So many should have’s. The growing theme in our lives. He should have… I should have…

Then someone said it out loud at the screening – it was a good thing he wasn’t there. The set ran beautifully. The film, while certainly no masterpiece, came out quite good – all four minutes of it. The experience was a blast. It taught me about what I didn’t know, a lot of which I have hopefully applied to “Cinderella.”

But it hurt to come home after I drew my genre Friday night – mystery, his specialty – and not be able to sit down at the computer and say, come write this with me. It hurt to spend the evening writing at a coffee shop so he wouldn’t be hurt, watching me work on this project. It hurt to be talking with Carlos about the script and my thoughts and the plot and not have it be my ex. It should have been but it couldn’t be.

He kept trying still to stick his fingers in the pie and I almost let him. I almost said, come to the set, come be a part of it. But a while later, when I actually let him watch the film, the first thing out of his mouth – less than 15 seconds in – was, “why did you do that, I would have done…” and I knew I had made the right choice.

So, 365 days and 360 degrees later, I still know I made the right choice. It hurts and it’s hard and, sometimes (not often, sadly enough) I miss him. He could be wonderful. He’s a good man, deep inside, and means well and never meant to hurt me the way he did, just as I never meant to hurt him the way I did.

I chose this sometimes lonely, sometimes depressing, sometimes dark and frustrating and infuriating and wounding life that can also be so fulfilling, so joyful, so free, so open, so easy because I wanted the things in my life to be my choice. I may not have always chosen well since and, recently, I have made many, many horrendous missteps in the name of love and friendship and jealousy and a few other unflattering traits. But they are my choices. And I chose today to click once again on that registration and see where the next 365 days and 360 degrees will take me.