writing escapism

This month has been all about writing, escaping through writing. I kind of feel like I blinked and August was over. I don't remember what I did besides go to work and write... oh I did see Guardians of the Galaxy at the beginning of the month with a friend... which I'm pretty sure was the only time I hung out with a friend this month. And then I did drive to Broken Arrow, Oklahoma last weekend to see my most favorite person in the world, and I don't say that lightly, and anyone that knows me at all will know that I am of course talking about Kristin Chenoweth. I was on the 5th row, and it was being filmed for a PBS special, and I was behind where the camera was, so it was basically like Kristin was looking at me throughout the whole show. At least that's what I tell myself. And I also tell myself that she was staying at my hotel, because there was a stretch limo outside of it when I got there, and this is a small-ish Oklahoma city outside of Tulsa, so I'm pretty sure it was for her. Never mind that her family lives there and it would make more sense that she stayed with them. But, you see, this is the kind of fantasy world I've been vacationing in. The good thing is that I don't really believe what I'm saying. I'm not delusional, I'm just imagining and creating a world in which my life is exactly how I've always dreamt it to be, and good things happen to me, good things called love and attention and being noticed and cared about and having all my intimacy needs met. This is the world I've been creating in my writing lately. Like I said, if I actually believed it to be true, that it would happen in all the ways and in all the details I've described it in, I would be worried for myself. But I live here in the actual world, in this dimension and not in the alternate universe I've created in story form which is now 36 pages long...and counting.
So Kristin sang this song at the concert I attended last weekend, that was written for her by Andrew Pippa, a composer who has written music for many musicals over the years, one in particular that Kristin won a Tony for, called "You're a good man, Charlie Brown." He wrote this song for her to sing, called "love somebody now." Kristin sang it in this concert, saying how she really "gets the song now." She's experienced the lyrics. I get it too, and I wanted to include them in this blog post, because, well it's MY blog and I can do whatever I want in it. But seriously, it's a wonderful song with so much feeling to it. I could see on her face that she felt every word she was singing, and I did too. I was so very happy in that moment that I splurged and bought the expensive seats on the 5th road. Because for someone who is as talented as her and who is used to portraying characters through song on the Broadway stage, she knows how to use those facial expressions and put on a show, and you can't appreciate the whole package that is Kristin, from up high in the balcony. Of course her voice alone can move anyone to tears, she is one of a kind, but there's something about seeing it as well as hearing it, that makes a world of difference. Here are my favorite lyrics in the song:
"I want to cry all alone on a mountain top and not have to explain why I feel so sad. I want to scream to the sea that the world doesn't hate me; that it takes more than courage to say yes, when you've locked yourself away like I have. I wanna drive with the wind in my hair and a CD player, on a trip to nowhere. I wanna curl in a ball and feel free for a moment and not get caught up in some kind of web I always made. I wanna see what you saw when you thought I was the one, and that we were the thing, but, then run away in silence. I wanna love somebody now, I wanna love somebody now...I wanna dig down in my soul and lose my self-control and find out what I'm not doing right..."
All that seems pretty self-explanatory so I won't go into dissect it and comparing it to my life. Let's just say that I "get it" and leave it at that. But I will say one thing (because when have I ever been able to "leave it at that") besides actually doing the mountain top line, having lived in Colorado, the line I most love and relate to is the part about "screaming that the world doesn't hate me, that it takes more than courage to say yes... when you've locked yourself away like I have." I like that because I could easily say that the Universe has it in for me, in the love department. It doesn't care, it doesn't have anyone for me, I'm destined to be alone, it hates me... but it does take more than courage to say "yes" to say yes to social events and online dating and getting out there in whatever capacity to meet this "one" this "love that awaits me"... or doesn't, I don't know. Courage isn't enough sometimes, I don't know what is, but I do get this song, at least how I interpret it. And I've definitely locked myself away this summer. Partly because it's so dang hot in August in Texas, so you're not going to find me out and about when I don't have to be. I am in the heat, driving around for my job, all freaking day, so I don't want to do it in my free time. But that's just a lucky excuse. I've locked myself away because I was tired of being, well maybe not rejected, but ignored, uninterested in, unable to connect with anyone new I met, turned down at every corner. I just didn't have it in me to try this summer. Not after so much trying in the months leading up to it. And even with my current friends...I got tired of it being one sided. Me being the only one that started the "so when do you want to hang out again" convo. I want to be pursued for once. I want it to be initiated by them and not by me. Even if in the end we do hang out eventually, after several tries to find times that they were free, and it was from a suggested date and time by them, it was still me that started it all. Sometimes I feel so invisible, even to my very own friends. I play a game to see how long I can go without texting them first and asking them to hang out, first. I always lose this game. While I appreciate so much, the texts I do get from them, even sometimes out of the blue to see how I'm doing or what have you. It just never seems to be a text with an actual "let's hang out on this day, if you're free" coming from them, deal. It makes me feel unimportant, or an "after thought friend", a "if I have time" friend. But I'll stop complaining now. I don't' want them to read this and feel bad, or mad or sad. No feelings that rhyme, please. I love them and they know it, and I know they love me, they are just busy people with busy lives and husbands and children to attend to that need their undivided attention pretty much 24/7, so I get it. "That is life. If nothing else, that is life. It's real. sometimes it fucking hurts, but it's sort of all we have." Sorry I digressed into a Garden state quote there for a second.
So, yeah, been escaping through writing a story of my life in alternate universe. One in where I actually get the girl, (and this is random) but I can draw really well in this universe. Like freehand sketching. I've always wished for that natural talent. And I'm a published writer, both novel and screenplay. But mostly I'm just loved. I'm cared about by an actual face to face live person, that does actually exist in this here Universe, not that she knows that I do...but this is all just fantasy. Maybe the part about being loved and cared about will one day not be a fantasy anymore, but be by someone who lives out there in this real life dimension that we live in. Maybe. Maybe I'll be lucky enough. Because what I've found is that people don't necessarily meet by hard work and dedication, nor do they force anyone to love them, it just happens. They meet, they connect, they fall in love, they get married, then the real work begins and they must keep the lines of communication open, the sparks flying or what have you. I know it takes work. I don't live in a fantasy world in that aspect. But the bottom line is, these people that find their "one," they aren't better than me. They aren't prettier, well some are, but you know what I mean. It's not about being smart or funny or beautiful or skinny or any of those things. It's really about being in the right place at the right time, which comes down to luck, if you really think about it. You had to have taken a route to that location, that would have put you there at the right time, meaning the right amount of lights, speed, traffic. You had to have been in the same place and have talked to each other for whatever reason. Online dating is a different story, and I'm not even going to address it, as I already have before. No more ranting for me on that topic. But it is about being lucky. And I'm notoriously not a lucky person. I believe the only things I have won in my entire 33 years on this planet are these two things: 2 tickets to the Martina McBride concert (which honestly I only called into the radio station in Colorado springs because my boyfriend was going to take me but then he broke up with me, so he obviously wasn't going to anymore, so I had to go, I don't know why, maybe on principal, or to prove some point in my head, but it was important to me that I still go. But anyway, I took a friend, and it turned out to be just sad and depressing...And the second thing I won was 2 tickets off a radio station website to see this comedienne, whom I have already forgotten her name. It was a long time ago. I'm sure it was worth the money...which was zero dollars. So yeah, that's it! Oh wait I think I won $3 off a lottery ticket once. But yeah, needless to say I'm not a lucky person. I'm not lucky in love either, either that or I'm picky. But I'm actually willing to give people a chance, if they are willing to give me one. Maybe I live in the wrong city. Seattle, or somewhere in Washington state has been on my mind for a few years now. I stopped believing in signs, so I ignored all of them and just stayed put. Now I'm kind of regretting not looking into it, because now I'm stuck here another year, with a lease. But maybe next summer I'll be living somewhere new. Maybe. There's a lot of "maybes" in my life right now. But I can control what I write and the universe in which I live in, inside my story I've been writing, so I'm kind of living there right now. Not completely. I have plans tomorrow to be out with the three dimensional people and not the ones that live in my words on typed pages, and actually on 2 different group outings, so that's at least something. Go me.
I'll leave you with one more song lyrics, because music is life to me. It's a representation of what I'm feeling, when my own words aren't enough. It explains more than I can, sometimes. And these lyrics are by my favorite male singer/songwriter- Joshua Radin.
"See your mountain see an ocean, see the years that bring rock and tide, close together. Settle down, I said to myself. Things that come with time, will always be better."  
And they are. When I do finally find someone to spend the rest of my life with, I'm gonna love the crap outta them. I'm gonna appreciate their face off. I'm gonna rock their world so hard that they won't even remember that anyone else ever existed for them, like I do. It's gonna be worth the wait, because I am awesome, and so will be the person I marry. I'll be the mountain... now waiting for my ocean...