Day 321: Days off? What are those?

Well, I sure have had a relaxing two days off. Yesterday I sat at my computer and edited photos from Tuesday’s shoot for six hours straight. I needed to pee for half of that time, yet just sat, thinking I’d do one more picture, until the sun had gone down and my room was dark and the evening was wearing on. Then I remembered my clothes that had been sitting in the machine since the morning, and worse, that I still hadn’t started my film review, which reviews I keep protesting are the thing I’m most interesting in doing for myself, rather than as a duty to someone else, yet I’d left to the last minute.

Writing yesterday’s was a nightmare. I sat for hours not able to get any words out. I started panicking that I simply wasn’t going to be able to do it, and that closed my brain up even worse.

Here’s a snippet of my notes from about 9pm last night:

“Opening swoop is chock full of information, and very simplistic information. Look at original, long scenes slow and cityscapes and they’re emotionally rich. Like, you get to feel things as you watch them. They’re empty of left-hemisphere information. They’re not scenes with talking language to tell you. What the fuck am I going on about? No, chill out. OK. It’s like… umm. They’re rich in meaning. But not in language meaning. They’re empty and in that space emotions, complex ones, can arise. But here, well, there isn’t that. It’s the opposite, whatever that means. I don’t know. I’ve forgotten how to write. I literally can’t do this today. I’m stressed. I can’t write at all.”

The anxiety - about a dumb little review of a dumb film on a dumb blog that no one reads - was sending me into fight or flight or freeze, and that is not conducive to the production of thoughtful, measured writing, let me tell you.

But I kept going, because I’ve felt this way so many times before, and always made it through, and slowly, once again, I found my way to that quiet place in my head where I could work. And the review was written. And it wasn’t the best review, but it wasn’t the worst, and it was one more victory against the forces of despair inside me, and I went to bed around 2am at peace.

Then today I spent another five hours finishing the photo editing, again sat unmoving at my desk, again not meaning to spend so long, but finding it easier to carry on than stop, and then seeing the end in sight, and pushing on through to get it done and over with. I’ve got a few photos to go back and tweak - I’ve recently moved onto Adobe Lightroom from an open-source raw editor, and I’m figuring it out as I go - but for the most part the photos are finished.

Here is a sneak peak of one of them:

And then this evening I went to see Sleaford Mods with Mike, which was not exactly a relaxing night out. The duo were caustic, combative, and angry, as is their wont - except I spent much of the gig trapped in my skull, stood near the back unable to make out the lyrics, unsure what to do with my hands, getting a headache from the dazzling stage lights, watching the beautiful children dancing and splashing in the waters of life while I stood alone on the shore isolated and anxious.

After the gig we were walking to the exit and Mike turned to me. “I felt a range of emotions during that,” he said. “And many of them were not good.”

“How so?” I asked.

“Well, I always forget, but sometimes I get really sad at gigs, wondering why everyone else is having so much fun and I’m having no fun. Wondering why I’m so intrinsically broken.”

I smiled.

It’s been a busy few days off, but it’s nice to spend some time with my friend, both broken together.