the end?

I've been in the process of building a website through another blogging site. However, this one has options that basically allow me to build a webpage along with my blog, and use templates so I don't have to code everything (which is nice because I'm not great with coding anyway).

juliecblack.wordpress.com

So perhaps this is the end of this blog. But I thought it should end on high note rather than the continual low notes it has lived on.

It's time to reach out. Time to force myself to reach out instead of shrinking inward.

With that in mind, I've been reaching out this past week, trying to stop being so inside my head all the time, and for as alone as I still am, things feel different. Things feel better.

Maybe my time of refinement by fire is coming to a close. Maybe I'm finally where God needs me to be before His plan for my life can move forward. I'd like to hope so.

While looking for jobs, I saw a posting of someone looking for a crew for a short film. Unfortunately, you had to join the site (join meaning pay a fee) to see contact details or anything like that, and the job wasn't paid so it wasn't even worth it. Anyway... the film was being done in memory of the person's sister, who at 30, committed suicide.

I grew up in a town drenched in fear after a record number of suicides in teens in the 90s. It's still happening, even now. Yellow ribbon, for those of you who don't know, is the suicide ribbon. I've heard story after story because of this history, and for more personal reasons, this issue is near to my heart. As such, I've continually heard stories about it over the years, and sometimes I feel like it's following me. A constant reminder of the aftermath of a suicide. People left in heartache for decades, people filled with regret they should never have, guilt that steals years off of the lives that are left behind.

It's my own personal reminder. I'm not allowed to leave, not allowed to skive out early. I read these stories and I hear my family speaking, see their tears, feel their agony, know their despair. In experiencing their pain, I know that I could never do that to them.

There are days when I'm scared, though. Days when I worry that I won't be strong enough. Days when I'm terrified that I won't live out my natural life, that I simply won't have any strength left. I am worn down, I am weak, I am fighting with all I have left to not be vulnerable to what scares me.

Seems strange, to be scared that you might commit suicide when your heart and mind have formed a solid union wanting to live. But there is a part of me that is sick, and has been sick for over a decade now. This part is the part of me that I have to fight against at my weakest, for that is when it surfaces. I'm terrified that someday I won't have any strength left and I won't be able to fight it, and that it will take over just long enough to do all it needs to do.

There is so much I want out of life, so much life I have yet to live. I want to get married someday, I want to have children someday, I want to direct films, I want to tell great stories, I want to grow old and see my grandchildren and hopefully even great-grandchildren. I want to be that old couple in the park holding hands as they walk together, probably at a turtle's pace.

All I want is the strength to always live. I don't mean to live forever, I mean to always choose life, to always win out over the part of me that has wished myself dead for so very long.

reflections on 2011

Sometimes it takes going 2200 miles away to come to terms with things, to make realizations, revelations, and finally figure things out.

I finally came to terms with a two and a half year relationship that could have gone a very different direction.
Had it gone that way, I would have been married for about six months now. That thought used to creep me out to no end. I suppose I had to get away to finally emotionally deal with all the damage he caused me. I don't know that I ever found the closure that we as humans so deeply crave, but at the very least, I've moved on not in part, but in whole. My singleness has become a blessing--a testament that God has something great planned for me, and that instead of trying to make something happen, I should wait. Wait for the right guy to come into my life. Wait for the guy to make the first move. Be patient. Don't force the issue. I haven't been on a single date since he and I were together. For a while that bothered me, that I was undesirable and that my ex was the only one who'd ever like me, even love me. And then I decided that there is someone incredible (and incredibly handsome) out there who WILL love me. Someday.

I watched my dreams, goals, and desires slip away to make way for something far deeper and pressing: surviving.
Not in the way that someone in a third world country does, but much more in the fact that I had to put everything I loved on hold just to earn money to pay rent and purchase food. On Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, I dropped a few levels. And it has hurt the whole way down. I've slipped from the top two tiers to the bottom two tiers, easily. When it gets to that point, where I am emotionally and psychologically makes much more sense now, the dark place that I inhabit has a reason for being so much darker than I have ever known it to be. I crave the third tier like I have never craved anything.

I learned that being 2200 miles away changes everything.
I've never been scared to do something new, to step out on a limb and take a change. I'm the fearless one in the family. But being all the way across the country from everyone I love has made me realize how important family is. How much I need them and how much I miss them. My priorities are changing, morphing. I don't want to be 2200 miles away any longer.

I lost my sense of home.
It's the people that make the place, and if you haven't found the right people, or barely see the right people, what does that make the place? A living hell. Torture. I have spent a year spiraling downward, craving time with the people that make the place for me, and finding them busy or uncaring most of the time. I'm alone. I'm so alone, and in that loneliness, I have lost all sense of home. LA was supposed to be home. I know more people here than I know anywhere else now, and yet it's anything but. I feel like a nomad, but instead of having a tribe that I travel with, the core people I am never without, I travel on my own.

I've found and lost myself.
That sounds strange, but it's true. I've found more of who I am, and in the same sense, lost most of who I am. I've lost my confidence, my outgoing self, my can-do, conquer all, iron-clad will. What I've found is the part of myself that needs the deepest healing, the part of me that is so very hurt and distraught that I will never escape it. But I've also discovered what my true priorities are now, who I am and who I'm becoming. I've discovered that I am stronger than I ever imagined, and still I am too weak for this city. How can I be so weak? A lot of people would just say suck it up and deal with it, but the truth is, I have. For months. And after feeling like I'm being attacked for months, without end or relenting, my defenses are so worn down that I as a person am disintegrating before my own eyes. I'm dying. One day at a time. And it kills me even faster to know that I'm not strong enough to fight back.

I went home for Christmas, and it was the best two and a half weeks I've had. We really didn't do anything exciting or all that special. Take that back--we picked out a cat, and that was plenty special and exciting. We didn't go anywhere, take any elaborate trips, have any special parties or anything. We were all home and I was happy. For the first time in months, I was happy. I was home. I was loved.

Perhaps it is the lack of love that I feel in LA that makes life so unbearable. I am forgotten, alone, unloved, and lacking purpose. And it hurts because I know I'm so very capable, and I'm not unlovable at all.

My goals are changing, now, in 2012. I'm rethinking my life, and one of the options I've come up with gives me hope. If I don't find a job out here in the next few months, as long as I give it my all, then I can go home to Ohio with my head held high and know that I did not fail, but this was not where God needed me. Perhaps I was needed here for a time, perhaps I needed to experience this in order to go where I need to go. In any case, if this isn't where I'm supposed to be, I go home and regroup. I could write while home, see if I have anything worth saying. And then try to get a job in TV in Atlanta. Four hours from my sister, eight from home.

Maybe I don't know what I want any longer. I think now that's for God to decide.

I just want to go back home. I want to be in a place where I'm loved.

those who inspire me, part I

These people are the film directors who inspire me the most. They're also my favorite directors, which is probably part of that.

Joe Wright, Director.
Films (of note):
Pride and Prejudice
Atonement
Hanna

For those who don't know, Atonement is my favorite film, and it breaks my heart every time I watch it. Pride and Prejudice is my go-to feel-good girl movie. At the end of it, I'm so happy that I'm squealing and probably glowing pink. Hanna was a good action film, though not great. Saoirse Ronan's acting was top-notch, and the concept behind the story was good, but I think it could have used a little more tweaking before going into production. It did, however, have a great character arch for the character of Hanna that you see especially when she turns to her father and says "you didn't prepare me for this." It's actually from filming Hanna that the above picture is from. The thing I really love about Joe Wright is that yes, he gets good performances out of his actors, and yes, he picks good stories, but what he visually does is stunning. The five minute steadicam shot in Atonement is one of the strongest points of the film. But there are so many strong points. He composes the shots, from staging to lighting, from hair/makeup/wardrobe to camera placement that the entire thing looks like a painting when done. Every shot. He juxtaposes wideshots with closeups, he chooses to show things other than the face for emotion. He balances things in such a way that a good story somehow looks and feels like a great story. He also is a master when it comes to working with a score composer. He picks great composers, and works with them to do what needs to be done. He dreams big and beautiful and emotional and real. He shows life in such a way that I am reminded how beautiful it is.


Darren Aronofsky, Director
Films (of note):
Requiem for a Dream
The Fountain
Black Swan

Sick, twisted SOB. And so good at directing it's unfair. The performances that he can pull out of actors are beyond insane. His stories are always twisted and uncomfortable and push boundaries that they shouldn't always push, but at the same time, it always says something. What the character of Marion in Requiem for a Dream does in the end is grotesque, but shows the lengths she will go for an end result because her character is so twisted. The Fountain is the least uncomfortable, the main story being a man so deeply in love with his wife/queen, that he would go to the ends of the earth and beyond to try to save her. Aronofsky may not pick the best stories, the stories that must be told, but the stories he tells are told so well that it more than makes up for it.


Tarsem, Director
Films (of note):
The Fall
Immortals

Visual genius. The Fall is also an incredible story with deeper philosophical and theological meanings in layer upon layer within the film. The acting in that film is fantastic, and no part of any performance leaves me wanting more or thinking it didn't feel right. It's somewhat of a lesser known film, although it shouldn't be. But the visuals of The Fall are really the strong point, and with as strong as the story and acting are (and directing overall) that's saying something. Haven't seen Immortals yet, but I want to mainly because he directed it. If I want to see something just because a particular director did it, they're good at what they do.

Peter Jackson, Director
Films (of note):
The Fellowship of the Ring
The Two Towers
The Return of the King
King Kong
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

Okay, granted the first three are basically all one film (and were pretty much shot as such), but that's like and 11 hour film, and it's one of the best films of our time. Directing wise, it's marvelous. To helm a movie like that, you have to be an incredible director. It was actually watching those three movies in the extended editions, and then watching the hours and hours worth of how they made it that caused me to want to go into film. I saw it and just knew that was where I needed to be. Jackson has done more, including a long list of B horror films, and a ton of producing and writing. The actors in LOTR tell stories about Jackson, and you can hear such a deep fondness in their voices, and you suddenly understand how good of a director he is. Actors don't bond to every director (although from a director's stand point we hope they bond to us) and to hear how much they adored him is telling.


Steven Spielberg, Director
Films (only a few of the many):
E.T.
Schindler's List
Saving Private Ryan
Hook
Jurassic Park
Jaws
Catch Me If You Can
Indiana Jones

The guy has done everything. And he writes, produces, directs, pretty much everything. He's one of those people. Everyone knows his name, everyone can name some of his films, everyone has seen at least one of his films. He's incredibly entertaining, or at least his work is, and you have to bet that if his films are that fun and entertaining, the guy probably is too. I'd say out of all his strengths, probably his strongest point is picking really good stories and telling them well. They're stories that you can't help but really like, and most of all, the masses can understand the stories and get into it. He hasn't lost his touch, he doesn't do weird things (well, he did AI, but every great director will miss the mark at some point), and he's also proven that he can do incredibly moving films as well. The guy can tell a story and tell it well.


There are more directors I like...
Kathryn Bigelow
David Yates
Mark Romanek

My next entry might have blurbs about them. Who knows.

hope and tears

Maybe I should start with the sad part of this entry so that at least it'll end better than it starts and won't leave you feeling horridly depressed.

I suppose it's time I admit that I'm in therapy. Depression runs in the family (actually, it gallops), and there was only so much that medication could do for me. After about six months on it, I felt it was doing more harm than good. From a psychiatrist post of view, that would mean it's time to try a different medication, since that one wasn't working the way that it should. Different medications in the anti-depressant family are composed different ways and do different little chemical changes within the brain. Finding the right medication means you have to mess around with what you're changing and see when you've hit the right chemical balance.

I, however, made a choice after accidentally going off medication. Long story short I got sick and didn't take them for a few days because, well.... eating wasn't working out. Anyway, I should have gone back on them, but I hadn't been feeling like me for a few months.... like I only had access to part of my personality, and that the medication had limited me as a person and made me sort of a two-dimensional character rather than a full three-dimensional character. So I didn't resume taking them. Instead, I made the conscious choice to tackle the deeper issues that my depression feeds on.

Let's get a few things straight here. First of all, I have a history of depression, as do several people in my family. Statistics show that once you've had depression once, you are over 50% likely to get depression again. Having a second span of depression increases your chances to about 80%, and three or more cases of depression pretty much solidifies the fact that you're going to have it for the rest of your life. Many mental illnesses are hereditary. One in five women will be diagnosed with depression at some point in their life, so it's not as uncommon as people truly believe it to be. Moving to a new place often brings up issues we have formerly dealt with and forces us to deal with them again. Los Angeles in particular is especially good at digging up the dead.

That I suffer is not weakness. It's a combination of a lot of things, many of which are out of my control. Getting help isn't weak--quite the opposite really, as the hardest things for me to admit in my life are that I need help on any of the big things. That I can't fight this battle on my own has been really hard for me to face.

Now that that's all sorted, I can actually get into what I wanted to say in the first place.

There are parts of my personality that have been developed over time, parts that I'm now aware of thanks to therapy, and they're not good parts. But as they are ingrained into me, I can't just turn them off. I keep walls up. Letting someone into my life, truly trusting them and letting them in on the secrets of who I am, is one of the single most painful things I can imagine, so I very rarely even allow someone a chance. My ability to trust was severely damaged as a child.

I think the core issue was finally hit, the sun around which all these issues and character flaws surround. I'll explain things this way.... think of our solar system, our planets and such. The sun is the core, then there are the inner planets, then the band of asteroids, then the outer planets. My depression is like the solar system, and I've been slowly working my way inwards to find out what fuels everything.

At my core, the issue that hurts the most, is the simplest one. I'm so very alone, and that loneliness is excruciatingly painful.

I don't know how to not be alone.

____________________________________

Now to something far less heavy.

My last entry was about this hope that I have, about the fact that I truly feel that God has someone for me, and that when the time is right, it'll be fireworks.

Lately all these notifications on facebook are showing that people are getting married, engaged, entering into relationships, all sorts of stuff. And then I'll see people upset about being single. I've heard that being single during the holidays is rough. Maybe if I was five years older, I might understand that, but I'm still rather young, and I've had it both ways, and to be honest, I don't know that there's a whole lot of difference.

With that in mind, juxtaposed with this solid hope I have, I find myself quite glad in my singleness. I feel almost like I have something that they don't--they may have a relationship, but I have hope and the promise of something amazing. I'm not rushing something, I'm not forcing anything, I'm certainly not settling for anyone.

For as stressed out and emotionally fried as I am, I at least have that. I have my singleness, which right now, is far better than any relationship.

Also, not related to the whole singleness thing, something that makes me feel less lonely.
Monday night was Disney night at a friend's apartment, and well.... Graham walked me home at 5am when the last of us decided we should call it a night. It was a long and lovely night, and I felt happy to just be there. I wasn't alone, I wasn't forgotten, I wasn't excluded or on the outside looking in. I belonged. I mattered. It was wonderful. Days like that (or nights, I guess?) give me hope, that amidst everything, despite how lonely I feel at the very core of my being, maybe I'm not alone after all.