French Turbans, Farmer's Market. I will be leaving for my Mom's house tomorrow or Monday, so I thought I would post a day early. It's a long trip - about 8 hours by car. I thought I would clarify something I said in my last post, I wrote that I told my Mom that I didn't have anything to live for. I'm not depressed or anything, or suicidal or anything like that. I am just contemplative of the 17 years I have spent with schizophrenia. It has laid waste to my whole life, ruined all my plans - work, children, fully realised marriage. I had to leave everything because of schizophrenia and come back to live with my parents. A year before my first, very heavy psychosis, we had just won our MTV award - Best Music Video of the Year, Japan. We were finally up and running. We were planning children after ten years together, we had just moved to Los Angeles. I left my home, my husband, my job, everything. And I tried after that to go to school four times, to work, it was just impossible. After my last job, being a part-time receptionist in a Real Estate office, I spent 8 years looking for work. My Latuda is now helping, I started that in April of this year, but I am still trying to find my way out of the wreckage of my life. I write in my journal and this blog, I started taking pictures again this Spring and I have a small, quite humble little plan to try and paint again. I am just still really stunned by the passage of 17 years, though. I just had so many false starts during that time, and 11 hospitalisations. I just can't seem to get over the waste of time. I was used to success and I was totally in love with my husband. I know I have written about this before, but I just can't seem to get past it. I am "doing my thing" every day, but I am missing the people and places I had chosen for my life to share things with. I just wonder what possible meaning this ridiculous disease could have for me. I do a bit of outreach online and that has been a good two-way street for me. I have learned a lot and I have been told that I am helpful and friendly, which I value. It's not like I'm just sitting around doing nothing but looking at the devastation. I can't decide if I am just lonely, I mean, I would love to talk to my husband, share meals and a bubble bath and a classic movie like we used to do. Those things gave my life meaning. I mean, I like my projects and so on, I did some nice photography for a while and I painted and I did some very nice art knitting using unusual yarns and stuff, but it's not like I have done something really fantastic like have children and memorable holidays and more time with my lovely husband. I have just kind of doodled for seventeen years while trying to find some stability out of this illness. No amount or quality of art is as meaningful as creating a family. I would have loved to have had a child with my husband. He is really special, has a lovely attitude and was up for adventure all the time. I had hoped my children would have his qualities, especially. It's just I'm 51 and it's late and I don't know what to do. I know nothing now but the futility of making plans generally. Nami shut down in our town. I went to a scheduled meeting last winter there and I was the only person who showed up, not even a moderator was there. I'm just not meeting people and doing things. I know it's a good sign that I want to do these things, that I feel able to do these things. But essentially, for now, I'm just treading water. My focus for the past five years has been little successes, taking care of myself - brushing my teeth every day, taking more showers, doing the laundry more often, keeping the house neat, then, learning to manage on Disability and stuff like that. Things that most people don't have to work at doing. These were real challenges to me for many years. I still could use some improvement, but I am pleased for the first time with my teeth. I especially worked on that for the past four years. This winter I expect a good report at my next dental appointment. It's just I feel like I'm in the middle of a big stew. Everything is in pieces and nothing will ever be the same again. And I am totally alone in my pursuits. My friends in the north of England emphasize small steps, and that's what I am doing. But I just remember the old me taking giant steps - moving to London, buying an apartment there, working for a national newspaper, starting to make films and finding some success. I am finally finding some stability after the chaos, but I'm still wondering where to go from here. In case you are wondering, some possible work is on my mind, but I'm looking at possible jobs I could do a couple of days a week, like working at McDonald's, and I don't think I can handle the pace, the responsibility. There are just no other jobs here that would use my other talents. I know - I have really looked at the whole picture, and for many years, like 13. All the arts programs in our town have folded, the museum was closed and sold. These are some of the places I had applied for jobs over the years, and I was quite ill at that time too. If I had been hired, it wouldn't have lasted long because of my health and the fact that all those places have officially closed down anyway. I haven't had success at the newspaper or the photography businesses in town, I applied over the years at least four times for each of those. It was just speculative at the newspaper and local lifestyle magazines, they can't even have an intern. I offered. And the photography places are hard to break into but I threw my name in the hat more than once to each of them. I got an interview at the local radio station, the job was titled "Production Assistant", but really it was washing cars and setting up the event tent. I didn't get it, the interviewer was like, "why are you applying for this?" I'm just kind of out of ideas, except to put together what I can scrape up of my film work over the years, and make a website. This is a big proposal, it's hard to track things down and I am also missing an important film I did in Los Angeles, my last work and it was a solo project, I was art department, director, camera and editor on that film, and it came out good, though I say it myself. It would be putting my best foot forward to be able to show that film. So I have to get over it and see what I can do. It's a good idea. If I could land a small film job, I could stay on Disability too, they would just deduct my fee from my monthly deposits, which is fine. It's just freelance work and I have done a bit of research and the budgets are miniscule compared to when I was working in film. So here I am.
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