Responsibility

My life in isolation in Scheissburg drove me over the edge, but I think it is fair to say that I had been pushed to the edge by the previous semester.  Long story and confidential events shortened, I became Mark from the musical Rent.  I watched my best buddy Roger get his heart torn apart by Mimi (or perhaps he would be Benny by now), and dealt with Maureen's craziness on the side.  I watched my world and my friends sink into hell, and there was not a damn thing I could do about it, not even make a stupid movie.  Mark is a really sucky character to be.  He doesn't actually do anything.  Just stands around and mopes while everyone deals with crap.  He doesn't even affect anything.  He doesn't end up with a lover.  FML.

The play neglects to mention, however, just how much it hurts to be in that situation.  To simultaneously be certain there is nothing you can do and still have the urge to fix everything.  Torn apart, much?

In summary, my two resolutions for this year are:  1.  Stop being afraid of things that won't kill me (did I mention that already?) and 2.  Don't make things my problem that aren't.  Because I came to the realization that I can't take care of anyone else if I can't take care of myself.

So now that we're in the second act, Maureen is having trouble with Joanne, and I can tell him what we all know he needs to do.  I can assure him a thousand times over that yes, people are going to be upset with him, but we as his friends will never abandon him.  But when it comes right down to it, this is something he can only do himself.

Last fall got to the point where I wanted to confront Mimi/Benny and have a very frank conversation with him about my take on what was going on.  That did not happen until after it was essentially too late.  Now, I'm choking off the impulse to do the same with Joanne.  She barely knows me.  And yet...I know she's about to go through hell.  A part of me thinks I could say something, do something, to make it easier.  So where do I draw the line?  Is she my problem, or isn't she?  Do I keep from getting involved, or am I already involved?

What is going to happen is that I won't say anything unless she approaches me.  Then all bets are off.  This is a very delicate situation, and any direct interference from me could very easily swing things the wrong way.  So Mark, get thee behind thy camera where you belong.  The best thing I can do now is call encouragement as the actors play their parts.  For I am an actor too, and I have my own parts to play.

How did we get here?  How the hell - ?
Pan left.  Close on the steeple of the church...

Why are entire years strewn on the cutting room floor
Of memory?
When single frames from one magic night
Forever flicker in close up
Of the 3D Imax of my mind?...

Why am I the witness?
And when I capture it on film?
Will it mean that it's the end, and I'm alone?

Home?

I'm sitting in my room, with the posters on the walls and too many books to count and more clothes than i remember and all the random items and junk that I have accumulated over the past two decades, unpacking my baggage from the past five months.  The suitcases are the easy part.

It is strange to be back.  Not like I never left.  Little things are different. It has been five months, after all.  But five months does not seem to have been as long here as it has there.  Five months in Germany was a lifetime.

It looks like I did build a life for myself there after all.  It just was not one I thought it would be.

So now I'm a different person than the one who left here in January, but I'm not the one who lives in Germany anymore.  It's like putting on an old pair of shoes after you've broken in a new one.

Once you return from a trip, you throw open all of your suitcases, and there is a big chaotic mess while you try to put everything back in its old place, and find place for the new items you brought back with you.

But I think, at least for a little while, I'm going to leave one of the suitcases closed.  The one whose contents are safely packed away where they can't do any harm.  It will have to opened eventually, of course - I can't be dragging it around for the rest of my life - but not now.  Wait until everything is unpacked and putback in place.  Wait until I know where I am again.  Then I can carefully find a place for the last of my baggage.