32 Hours

If there’s one thing I have learned in my years of dealing with an ever-growing list of mental health challenges, its that so many of us deal with these same challenges to some degree. Some are more quiet about it, not wanting to upset the apple cart more than they have to. Some are very vocal about it, whether its to share struggles, educate and bring awareness or just scream for help without actually saying it out loud.

I’ve done a little of everything. I used to be very open and vocal about my struggles, both on social media and within my close circle of friends. Lately, though, I’ve felt the need to turn to self-reflection more and more as my constant cries for help have started having their toll on my friendships. “What can I do to help you?” has turned into “I’m sorry to hear that,” which has turned into “I don’t know what to tell you, man.”

My own struggles have made others tired, and believe me, I get it. I say all that not to trigger guilt or to place blame, but to note that sometimes you’re so wrapped up in your own struggles that you seem to forget that others are struggling with their own problems as well. Its just hard sometimes to get through your own bubble to be able to see the world outside.

The voices you’re battling with get louder, more insistent and more insidious. They start to take over and suck the energy out of you, leaving you feel like the victim of an emotional Dementor’s kiss, and at that point, you can either give up, give in or give yourself a fighting chance.

The Top Songs in Animated Film: Revisited

Back in 2014, I took on what has become, by far, the biggest project this blog – or any of its iterations – have tackled: To peruse the vast catalog of music presented in animated film and curate a list of the top 100 songs.

While the end result was a very rewarding experience for me, it became dated very quickly. More movies have been released with more songs to sing. Who I am as a person has changed a lot, which understandably has changed my opinion on a good number of songs, for better or worse.

Still, even as more and more material became available, I never really considered going back and looking at this again. I figured it was a product of its time and knew it’d be dated pretty much as soon as the next great animated musical was released.

Exit the Warrior: A Farewell to the King

 

“Suddenly, you were gone, from all the lives you left your mark upon.”

— Neil Peart, 1952-2020

 

You never truly expect your heroes to die.

When I learned that Neil Peart had passed away on January 7th after an extended battle with brain cancer, I was struck numb.  I am an incredibly emotional person even in my calmest moments, but hearing the news was almost paralyzing.  It didn’t seem like it could be real.  To me, Neil was an immortal.  It never even occurred to me that some day, he’d be gone.

As the reality of it all began to coalesce, however, I found myself torn between utter sorrow at his passing and sheer elation that I got to experience his gifts.

I discovered Rush when I was in high school.  I had a sizable crush on a girl in one of my classes, and she was obsessed with them.  My musical vocabulary was incredibly limited at the time, partially due to my upbringing but mostly because music was just not my art. I liked it well enough, and had some favorite songs, but I just didn’t get it.  I simply didn’t know enough to understand why some songs were good and others were bad.  I have always been more of a writer than musician, so to me, the melodies and harmonies were the background sound to the lyrics of a song.

Chapter 1 – The Child

 

The fire was dying.

Quelth wrinkled his nose and poked the fading embers with the end of his staff, but after a brief glow, the flames flickered and dimmed. Sighing his frustration out through his bared teeth, he sat back against the tree, tapped the end of his staff against the ground and spoke a short incantation under his breath. Within moments, the fire roared to life again.

“Is it sleep time yet, Quelth?” a young voice asked.

Startled, he jumped a bit at the question, causing his visitor to giggle. “I wish you wouldn’t do that, Miri.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, moving to stand between him and the fire.  “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

Somewhere I Belong

When you start seeking out the things you love, you never know quite where it will go.  Will an interest become a hobby? Will it bloom into a passion? An obsession? How will it change you?

These are all questions I genuinely asked myself when i chose to get back into the theatrical arenaseveral years ago. It had been a good 20 years since I even tried to set foot on a stage.  Part of it was timing, part of it was necessity, and part of it was the nagging idea that I was just wasting my time.

When I auditioned for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof at what was then called the Tallahassee Little Theatre in 2011, I was stiff, nervous and felt completely out of my element, not to mention rusty.  But getting out there helped shake the nerves, and the positive feedback I received from director Chip Chalmers helped convince me that it was something I needed to keep trying to do.

Moments in Time: A look at my favorite movie scenes

Although I consider myself a fan of most art forms, I’ve made no secret that my deepest connection is with the medium of film.

From the black-and-white lo-fi classics of the 1930s to the super-kinetic superhero movies we see today, I can usually find something in every genre that I connect with.  Film is a feast for all senses, and my thoughts echo those of Brad Bird, who has famously said that he loves art in all forms but loves movies the most because it combines so many of them.

Although I’ve always loved film, however, I find that I have gone through several phases where how I enjoyed movies simply changed with time. At first, I just wanted entertainment. Then I focused on the writing. For a while, I tried to adopt a more serious cinephilic profile and dig into cinema simply as a craft and looked at lensing, framing and the art of putting a film together.

Now, I find myself somewhere in the middle of all of these extremes, and looking at how drastically my list of favorite films has changed – even over the last 10 years – has borne that out.

What I’ve also noticed is that, as much as I consider myself a fan of film, I’m more accurately a fan of film moments.  Movies are, if nothing else, a bunch of moments edited together. Whether those moments are intense conversations, visually spectacular action sequences, or ones that simply tug (or tear) at your emotions, moments make the movie.  What we have below is a list of some of my favorite scenes from my history of watching films.

I wish you’d never remembered me

For a while I didn’t know who you were. You were a concept. I knew your name, but not your face. But I didn’t care.

I had a mother. A father. A family.  To me, you were my mother’s second husband and the man who gave me half of my DNA. Past that, you were nothing but a ghost.

When my natural curiosity overcame my apathy, I was told that you’d left me in my mother’s custody out of the wishes of your new wife. She, I was told, forced your hand and wanted to start fresh, so to save your new marriage, you totally cut the ties to your old one, including me, your only son.

I had no reason to believe otherwise. My mother was hurt by what you did. By who you were. If she wanted to hang you out to dry and place 100% of the blame on your shoulders for leaving me behind, who would have blamed her?  I wouldn’t have. Nobody would have.

So if she said it was because of this other woman, your new wife, who was I to question it?

Hitting reset

Can you ‘rebrand’ a free, personal blog space? It’s hard to call it a brand, I guess, since there’s nothing I’m really trying to market.  Even though I share my posts when I write them, I mostly do it to get stuff off my chest, and if others get something out of them, that’s great.

Being able to say that is, in itself, is a sign of my growth as a person.  As recently as 6 months ago, my various mental health challenges would have convinced me that because very few people visit my blog, and even fewer comment, it meant that I was relatively unimportant in everyone’s life.

But, this change in thinking, as much as its a hallmark of personal growth, also made me realize that my direction as a writer, both as a blogger and otherwise, had completely changed.  And so I decided it was time to take the next logical step and redesign and rename my blog.

Imposter-ception

I don’t blog very much anymore.  To be honest, its been a long while since I posted with any sort of regularity, but over time, the reasons why have changed.

At first, it was a lack of time. Then it was a lack of things to say. Now? Its a lack of confidence.

Not necessarily a lack of confidence in my ability to write or communicate – though that’s part of it – but moreso a lack of confidence that anyone reading this would NOT sigh and roll their eyes at my tendency to yet again talk about my mental health.

Trust me, I know a lot of this is projecting.  I’ve thoroughly convinced myself that any time I post about my Cyclothymia or Borderline Personality Disorder, my friends and acquaintances think I’m doing it out of a need for attention, even the negative kind.

I’ve often deleted posts before publishing them after seeing friends on Facebook make posts sarcastically deriding the action of talking about depression on social media. I feel targeted, even if its not directed squarely at me, so I back off and decide to just keep it to myself.

Life on the Razor’s Edge: The Spectre of BPD

When I last spoke to you all (and its been a while), I talked about depression, both in general terms and on a more personal level. Since then, my wife and I have moved back to Tallahassee, FL, and I’m back working for the State Government.

We both dived back into theatre, and I went back to seeing a professional to help determine with more specificity what was actually going on inside my brain.

At first blush, it seemed like a simple case of Cyclothymia, a mild form of Bipolar Disorder.  Mood swings rule your week, and sometimes there’s no rhyme or reason as to when or where they’re triggered.  This diagnosis also explained why more mainstream depression medications were not that effective with me – my depression was part of a cycle, not just a hole to dig myself out of.

Still, even after the diagnosis and the beginning of treatment, there were other things that just didn’t add up. My anger. My tendency to think people hated me even though any evidence I pointed to was easily disproven or at worst, circumstantial.

There were times I went from adoring a person to outright detesting them in the blink of an eye, and there were times where the exact opposite happened.