I met with my writing buddy two nights ago and I've been in such a weird frame of mind ever since. I managed to complain about and justify my miserable life for three hours. It hit me as I was driving out of the parking garage that I really did do that. I can't believe I did that.

So now I'm at a crossroads, several in fact. I can go on complaining about my miserable life and how unfair it all is or I can stop complaining. I could do something about it half-heartedly as I've always done in the past or I could give it my all, win or lose, succeed or fail. I could sabotage myself or find a way to circumvent my self-defeating habits.

My usual way of being would be to find some way of avoiding my friend so I didn't have to face him again. I'm totally embarrassed by my behavior and will have a hard time looking him in the eye again. But he's done nothing wrong. In fact, he's been a great friend, a great listener and is fast becoming a "believing mirror" for me in what I consider my writing career (I guess I have to write to have a writing career) and is learning that what I need most is someone to hold my feet to the fire. And I respect that. I'm so tired of the "Yes Man" mentality; where you say whatever it is you think the other person wants to hear. Give it to me straight. I may not want to hear it but it's exactly what I need to hear. If I get mad and never speak to you again, then I guess I wasn't such a good friend after all. We've become a society so afraid of offending someone that we don't say what needs to be said. And we're so hypersensitive that we can't bear to hear any criticism.

I once introduced my then boyfriend to a dear friend of mine who gave his blessing on the relationship. Months later when I told my friend that the boyfriend had abused me repeatedly, his reply was that he knew that was going to happen. My question: why didn't he tell me? His reply: because he didn't think I'd listen. Would you have listened? He never gave me the benefit of the doubt. He could have told me and then I would have had a decision to make; stay with the boyfriend regardless, stay with him until I no longer felt safe, or end the relationship. I probably would have allowed the relationship to continue until the first sign of abuse instead of allowing myself to stay in the relationship for as long as I had. Without my friends honesty, I was convinced my boyfriend had never done that sort of thing before so when it happened, I was unprepared and embarrassed to tell anyone. Had I known, I would have been better armed (pardon the pun - no I wouldn't have taken lethal action -  unless I felt my life was threatened, of course).

But so many of us do not want to listen to what we most need to hear. We surround ourselves with people who make us feel good, feed our ego. I asked my friend what he thought my chances were of selling my screenplay. He gave me less than 50%. I was disappointed. Maybe I'm not as good a writer as I thought. Maybe I'll never get anything produced/published. But I can't not write. I'm a writer, that's who I am. Though I dream of having my name on the big screen or across the book cover, that's not why I do it. I've been writing since I was 14 years old. I've had many setbacks, lost years of writing, fight it tooth and nail sometimes, but I'm just not a happy person when I'm not writing. Most of it is droll, like this blog, and no one will ever set eyes on it (seriously considering having my journals cremated with me) but I have this demon inside of me that I fondly call the Muse that must express herself. I must fall upon my pen and bleed words upon the page.

But I digress. My mind has been befuddled ever since meeting with my friend. Crossroads: do I just allow myself to fall back into the same old same old or do I do something different. I want to do something different but not yet sure what that is. And that is what has me befuddled. That, and I feel as though a monster is inside my chest pounding to get out. I need to write about this but it scares me to death. I can justify my pain and misery for three hours. I can write a million words about it. I can analyze it to death. But I don't know if I can let it go. I'm afraid I'll be nothing, no one with out it. My pain makes me who I am. Who am I without it?

I grew up in an environment where we one-up-man-shipped each other with maladies. Who worked however many days straight without a day off, who was the sickest, who worked while the sickest was the winner. I swore I never wanted to be that way but here I am doing it to my friend and apparently I'm the winner because he was aghast at some of the  descriptions of my life. Give me a gold medal!!! Kind of like the game of having the biggest, best and most toys when you die. What does it matter, you're dead anyway!!! Okay, new game, find what makes Shawn happy and do that. Writing is one thing that makes me happy, among others. Do That!!!