Joan Rivers died yesterday. Aside from the fact that I felt like she was some distant great-aunt of mine, I always admired her bold spirit- the fact that she knew who she was, and had no shame. More times than not, shame is the name of my game, and who, I proclaim, is to blame for this claim... but myself. It's insane! Insame.
No, but really, if we wanted to psychologize, I'm sure I could find someone or something to blame. The media? They're always a good target. My parents? Didn't Freud say something about blaming parents? I forget. Psych 101 was my worst grade in college. Plus my parents are the bomb-dot-com. Bottom-line is, I hit a point and realized I am incredibly hard on myself: constantly doubting, judging, and comparing my choices and actions. There was a time when my efforts were free, but unfortunately, for whatever reasons, I started to feel threatened by everything around me, so in turn, I stopped making the effort at all.
Yesterday I went to get a flower arrangement for a friend. I carried them around with me all night, from Manhattan to Brooklyn and back. Maybe it was my emotional vulnerability from the passing of dear Joan- I mean come on, she was my favorite guest star on two childhood movie staples of mine: The Muppets Take Manhattan and Peewee's Playhouse Christmas Special- or the fact the flowers were for my friend's deceased (a word that comes as close to onomatopoeia as a word can get without actually being onomatopoeic) grandma, but I felt I had company in those beautiful, sweet-smelling flowers. I was literally carrying a bundle of life. I'm in my 20s, and a lot of gals are having babies, their own "bundles of life." The old me would be intimidated by the fact that I'm probably some years away from this point. But the new me, the me freely writing on a blog to juice up some creativity, was very grateful of the fact that I can proudly carry around life right now. And not just life in those flowers, but my own life.
I hit a low point where I would have rather napped than walked outside. Now I'm awake, and I want to see what there is "just beyond the riverbend." Or, just beyond Riverside Park. Now where do you, reader, come in? Well, I want this to be a forum. I want you to take my thoughts and translate them somehow into the activity of your own life. In my period of depression, I slowly and carefully tried different tricks and techniques to calm my mind, so I'd have the courage to get out of that bed. Flower essences, exercise, foam rollers, meditation, psychiatric therapy, drugs, writer's workshops: different ingredients that came together that have now led me to a point of acknowledging where I was and where I'm going. Being a person is hard. Living in NYC is hard. As William Goldman in The Princess Bride wrote: "Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something." So let's figure out how to make it a little less painful.
Going back to The Muppets Take Manhattan (maybe I should retitle this post "References to Great Movies of the Mid-1980s?), there's a big point in the film where Kermit, one of the greatest protagonists of our time, has lost it all- his career, his friends, his lady-pig. But, being the optimist that we all know and love him for, he climbs to the top of the Empire State building and proclaims to the city that he isn't going anywhere. He's going to get his life back, and damn he believes it.
And I believe it, too. Let's live large for Kermit. Let's do it for Joan. But most of all, let's do it for ourselves, because we know who are, and we're staying.
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