Conversations and Revelations With Amy

I have always been a passionate person. Not necessarily dramatic, but not so far off.  I have written poetic writings, stories and lyrics for a very long time. I have always been moved by certain emotions, experiences, and music. I needed a place to go with this. I had something to say and so I started at an early age writing my perspectives down whether in a poem, lyrics or a story. Let me just make the point quickly that I always say “poetic writing” instead of “poem” because I find what I do to be very much like a poem, but also very different then one’s perception of what poetry is. I write more in a prose style, no rhyming (unless maybe in lyrics) and in a free form that expresses my feelings but in a more vivid use of words. I have found many people who do not really read poetry to think that poetry is a framed writing about leaves in winter or an examination of something they have no idea of what the author is talking about. They were only exposed to poetry maybe in English Lit. and know Robert Frost or Longfellow and did not get it at all.  I guess who cares at that point then. They won’t be interested anyway. I love poetic writings that are different than what we were shown growing up. That is why I love ee cummings. I read some of his collection in an aisle of my library my senior year and was blown away. Wow! Who was this guy? He wrote of sexuality and had a bump and flow like nothing I had ever read. He was so progressive. Anyway, I am getting off topic. If you think you do not like poetry, check him out.

Back to me. So, after I went to university at UT at Austin, I graduated with a degree in Psychology. It totally fits me. However, the job path went awry. I was hired and trained to be a buyer. I was in a very grey world of technology and was buying parts for machines to be built. Great experience and good money but these things led me in a different direction of me, who I now know at the core is a creative. It was fine. I was making money and playing with friends and partying after work so my life was good. When you have one job, to get another you must play off of what you have done before. So off I went, job after job of buying for different companies. Not until a few years ago when this industry started spitting out who they had brought in, did I realize that I was playing hard at a game that did not define me. While I had enjoyed my jobs, they were in no way a definition of who I was at all. Crisis. I launched into a grueling introspection of what made me up. I floundered and struggled to help myself arrive at some conclusion. It never came. What would happen when I did anyway? Would I go back to school? Would I start over as a newbie at some low level position of something that would interest me? That sucks. So I continued to try to explore what may interest me. What is my passion? Nothing would stand up and take responsibility. Or I had so many interests but none more than another. This led only to indecision and despair.

Maybe, if I had been making great money and the industry had allowed me stay at one place long enough to excel, I would not have arrived here…just yet. However, with constant lay offs, companies closing and companies only hiring temps for a year…I was thrust into the reality that I could no longer make a career at. I wondered if I was A.D.D.. I really did. I would be excited about a new direction and then a week later be very blasé at the notion. There was no drive in any new way. I admired people who knew what they wanted and just went for it. I knew I was passionate…so I knew that I would know when the right thing when it would slap me in the face. Nothing was reaching out to whack me. Only myself, in anger and frustration.  Ugh, I was almost drowning in the indecision and confusion of what to do next. I hated where I was working and was being treated in a way that was below my standards and pride. I was embarrassed. To be treated in such a manner, so undervalued and paid so little…it sucked! It forced me to keep looking and to beat myself up for a conclusion. It was awful. We can be so unforgiving to ourselves. I know that this is the mind pushing us to take the next step. What was it, damn it!?

One Sunday morning, Kevin and I are sitting on the couch watching the discovery channel. He is on his laptop at the same time, a favorite activity at any place or time. It is fun to look shit up and watch TLC or the discovery channel on Sundays. It’s what we do. So he tells me about the travel channel’s bootcamp on video/film held overseas. It sounds interesting. Maybe not so interesting at $5,000 a person, but intriguing nonetheless. So I try on the idea as I do any new idea posing a new career/life. Hmm, I like what it conjures up. Filming interviews, documentaries or whatever you want as a way of life, a way of career.  It also has the cool factor to it. “Yes, I do documentaries or I make videos”…um, yes, that is cool! I play with this idea for the next couple of weeks. It buzzes in me and talks to me like it knows what I want to hear. It stays with me like nothing else has in years. What is happening here? Am I crazy?

I get out of the car one morning to head into my office building and I am feeling dread. After a few emotional traumas in the past year, I am worn out. I am feeling depressed. I felt like nothing could be quite good. It frightened me. I went to work. Feeling fragile, I open email. I immediately start looking at film schools and classes. I email my husband, showing him what I had found. He emails back that he has gotten his company and me into an intro video/film course two weeks away! I email back, ”What??!!”  He confirms his original message. My little creative soul soars and flies around my desk. My heaviness from before starts to leak out and is replaced by hope for the future. God bless that man, protector of my confused mind and deliverer of my new direction!

It has been happy days since. I am still at my job but making plans to embark on a new exciting adventure. My ideas are endless and my mind is saying that I am on the right track. Passion has reared its gorgeous head.  We will see where this will go but I am more sure about this than I have been about anything in years!

So let me tell you people, if you are questioning…keep beating yourself up until you get some answers. I feel so refreshed and relieved. Look for what naturally motivates you. Look for what you can put “you” into. Stay tuned! I am hoping for great things to come.