1. A blow. Punch. The air is pushed out of my stomach like you're stepping on a balloon. I get that winded feeling where everything sinks, the whole of me reels in to my stomach and then evaporates in all directions. Like that camera shot where things simultaneously move closer and farther away. That's also the visual image I've had when I've experienced the worst of my panic attacks.
It's a gasp of air that doesn't make it. A chunk of bubblegum that has been rotting in you for years, and you never noticed it til right now, all of a sudden there is a rock inside of you.
And stillness.
2. Immediate depression. Low grade, kind of petulant sadness. Little kid sadness. Not the sadness of children, which I think we all know is unending and would melt you if you saw it, but the sadness of little kids, when they cry and no tears come out, when they fall and look back to you to know if they're hurt or not. Sometimes solved by ice cream or a lash of whiskey. This doesn't last very long, this one.
3. That amazing part of me, of all of us, that survives, the part that is not destroyed by the fire, but purified, kicks in. 'Oh well'. A certain resilience. This is the part of me that keeps me from falling off tall buildings. I dont' give it a lot of credit, but it is there. It, again, doesn't last long. It goes, 'There will be others. It is their loss. Oh well. Who cares?'
4. Immediately silenced by the hideous hose beast who lives in my heart and says, 'I CARE! I SUCK. I HAVE NO TALENT AND WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO CHANGE MY LOT IN LIFE. GIVE UP GIVE UP EVERYONE IS LAUGHING AT YOU. FALL OFF TALL BUILDING!'
(We know who this is, right? This is Madam Mim as a dragon from the Sword in the Stone! It's amazing how much she looks like me!)
5. Then, I get a kind of numb quiet feeling. Empty.
A huge part of being rejected (as an actor, but even more so as a writer, which is the current rejection I'm dealing with), is the feeling that no one cares what I think. No one feels the way I feel. No one is interested in what I have to say. This becomes terrifying as an artist and makes me think that I'm not an artist, and then it goes deeper and makes me think I'm not a human being. I look at stuff that goes on, or is accepted, and am flummoxed (an excellent word, that, excellent). It makes me think that I don't get what everyone else likes, so of course they don't get me. It's what loneliness feels like. It's that moment at the part where everyone is having so much fun and you start to cry.
Numb numb numb. Something vibrating so intensely that you can't see it moving at all.
I flip back and forth between this numb feeling and total despair. Occasional rallies from within of 'you can do it', or whatever. The most effective of these are when I pretend that I'm being interviewed after a great success, and I say these places that didn't support me, and look where I am now, fuckos! Does that make me petty? Probably. I am not getting better at handling rejection. It slays me. It slays me.
And then, I guess, there's the carrying on. At some point I won't carry on. At some point it will be the end. I'm never sure if I'm at that point. I always think I am, but then something happens, I do something, and even if I remain distinctly not a success and distinctly frightened and confused, I do something. Right now I feel that I'm not carrying on, but I am. I think. Still angry and hurt. Still so frustrated. But I'm reading Patti Smith's 'Just Kids', and listening to Joe Tex, and watching PT Anderson movies endlessly, and reading about theatre that's being created elsewhere in the world, and I feel that these are a part of carrying on, in some way. The fuelling. The wondering and wandering. Maybe? I dont' know. It feels like a not-low grade depression, but it's also full of stuff that is beautiful and inspiring. Even if I can't be inspired right now, it's there. I'm absorbing. I hope. I really hope that this is a calm, this is an ebb, but there's something else that I'm just gearing up for. I'm not sure though, honestly.
I feel as if I might be quitting but I also feel as if I've just begun to fight.
No comments:
Post a Comment