Part of making New Year’s resolutions is reevaluating the past and letting go of those dreams that don’t serve us any longer.
Mine started 17 years ago, when I met my perfect man. The thunderbolt hit, there were shooting stars (literally), the whole shebang.
I should say the dream started a few months before, when I had left the Midwest to pursue screenwriting. I was going to be the next Paddy Chayefsky, and a personal connection led me to the Sundance Institute where this man — we’ll call him Michael — was a guest lecturer. Michael had produced a string of acclaimed independent films, and I was assigned to assist him.
All I can say is, from the moment I met him, I was smitten. He was everything I had ever wanted in a man, and here he worked in the film industry to boot. So when he invited me to help out on his next project, I immediately packed my belongings and drove out to LA.
Nothing was to come of it then; Hollywood had gotten the better of me, and I suffered a breakdown. I spent most of the next two decades getting my life straightened out. And I had, for the most part, until I decided to try screenwriting again….
That was the beginning of last year and, as I’ve mentioned before, my life has been flipped upside down in the past 12 months, so I now find myself in very similar circumstances to those I was in 17 years ago. I also found myself, through a series of serendipitous encounters, back in touch with Michael. And both times I felt the same magic, the same joy at the very thought of him, feelings I’ve never had for anyone else before or since him. It just seemed like the Universe had reconnected us so we could work together, support one another, have what we both had always wanted.
I told him my feelings. And while he calls my love pristine and nearly sacred, he said I love an illusion of him. I’m willing to accept that, but what if it’s not? He’s clearly unhappy, and it just seems worthy of at least a preliminary investigation. But now he won’t even return my emails.
I go over and over and over it in my head: Why won’t he talk to me? It’s driving me mad (again). He thinks me smart, he appreciates my sense of humor, he found me attractive then and I don’t look that differently, except for these dang dark circles under my eyes.
In truth, it’s those dark circles that are telling me I need to let the dream go. Same with the diverticulitis attack and autoimmune issues. Whether or not I ever gain understanding about this connection to Michael, I need to take all that energy I’ve spent trying to create what could be, and focus it on what is.
So I shall let the dream go—if not the aspiration of being a screenwriter, at least the desire to be it with Michael. I’ll keep the love, though. I agree with him, it is pristine and nearly sacred. Realized or not, that kind of love doesn’t come along very often.