Vulnerable

I do not seem to care that…

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…disaster will strike. It’s a weird feeling overall. It’s like sitting fairly comfortably in a hole or cave, just waiting for the flood to come. I don’t know when, but I know it will happen. Despite this knowledge, I’m still not able to move, get my ass up in the air and walk.

I’m so tired every day. I really have no idea why I’m so tired. When I sit in front of the computer, like yesterday, I force myself to start working on something, but I almost fall asleep, can’t keep my arms up, my fingers moving. Then suddenly, with no trigger whatsoever, it starts to become easier. Energy comes back and I can work like the tiredness never happened. I’m not sure what I can do about it. I think I have a lack of Vitamin B12, but then, wouldn’t I always be tired?

My new room is so bleak and reverb-y, I had some ideas to make it more colorful and ready for winter today. Though I have to get out for that, preferably in the morning, but I never wake up before 10. If I manage to get up one day and find cheap things to make this room less gray, it might help me to stay positive and push through winter.

I’m still looking for jobs, but there is nothing out there, especially for my age. I was thinking to go back to freelance work, because I think that a big part of my reluctance to find a job is that I don’t want to be employed. I’m not an employment kinda person. Those 5 years with HP were the worst 5 years of my life. Maybe I’m exaggerating, but it just didn’t feel right. In a way I believe that these 5 years broke me. I’m hoping not beyond repair, but it’s been almost 3 years now. Granted in those 3 years, I studied film producing, I worked a bit freelance on film productions, and I shot my own movie. Overall though, I lost my grip. Especially after I had to come back to Europe.

Europe poses a few problems for myself. FIRST, there are not many jobs in film production that are not in advertising. SECOND, especially in the German speaking countries they produce German content, which I despised for the most part of my life. I can’t really think like a German audience anymore, because I never consume German content in any way. THIRD, Europe hates to employ older people. Especially those who start out fresh in an industry. FOURTH, I am so versatile that I could work in so many areas, but that also gives me less of a chance, because I can’t really focus on one industry. I know that I don’t want to work in IT anymore. I could imagine to work in publishing, but I really want to work in film producing. Without experience in the German industry and without my passion for German language content I’m lost though.

I wish I could find an international production that films here in Europe. No matter where, as long as I can go there. Sadly I don’t know how to find these productions, because I think they are mostly controlled from the US. How to get in there is my big question. Just writing letters to producers and directors, would that help? I guess I’ll never know if I don’t sit down and do it. I could also look at films and figure out who those production companies are that help out with international productions here in Europe. I know that the Matrix 4 is filming in Berlin, Riley filmed in Finland, and I guess there are a ton of others doing the same right now.

That’s the kind of work that would really wake me up and get me going 24/7. I don’t think I lack energy. I lack opportunity. I always hope opportunity finds me, but I guess that’s the wrong assumption. I have to find opportunity, it won’t find me.

I’m not fine…

/ admin

I’m not fine.

Proof that I am not fine is that I am starting to write here again. I’ve been okay for a bit, but that might just have been a big fat lie.

After school, which I aced with a GPA 4.0, I went on to my OPT. And here I failed. I failed to move on. I worked on many freelance projects… for free. I think that’s where the word free-lance comes from, right? But I wasn’t able to move on from love, until I had to. It was a tough time, but I somehow managed. Beaten, hurt, slayed. I started to write my story for my short film, based in part on my life. It took me forever to plan, to lay out, and actually write. I had help from good friends along the way. But as per usual, I didn’t have anyone to walk this with me, side by side. I did it alone, and I think this is one of the reasons why I’m not fine. In some situations you need someone on your side. Someone that takes your hand, looks into your eyes, and says, everything will be fine.

I have a few good friends. Friends who try their best to keep me on track. Friends who lovingly listen and give advice. But overall they have their own life, their own problems, and I can’t burden everyone with what is going on inside me.

But I still have to tell you, the inside of me right now is dark. Maybe not as dark as it has been once before, but dark in a way that makes me scared. I am afraid. I am anxious. And I do not know how to fix it. I am actually despondent. I had dire times in my life before. It was different though. I was younger, I could take more, I could make the right decisions to make it okay again.

When I fall, I usually get up and keep going. Like with the attempted robbery that I escaped recently. My knee still hurts, which reminds me of the incident every day. But I am confident that once the pain is gone I will forget. Like I always do. But with my upcoming life in general, I don’t know. I can’t seem to forget. Because it’s in the future. How can you forget the future? And on top of that, this time, I feel tired. All the time. I try to escape. But wherever I run, I end up at the beginning again. Only a few hours later in time. Not helping at all. It’s making it worse, because I know that I wasted time.

Are there any specific fears? Yes, I can name many. First of all, money. I’m running out way too fast. Then what will happen when I land in the cold in January? Where will I live. Will I find work to survive? Will I ever be able to come back? Do I even want to come back? And then my project…

I’m currently coming up with fake plans to hide behind. I want to come back, I want to see China, I want to work in production on a big feature. Things I put in front of me like a shield, a shield I know is just made of thin paper, and I hope others won’t see how fragile it is.

I want to reach out to talk. But I can’t, because it’s just too much to put on to someone else who barely keeps going with their own life. I’m at a point again, where I am desperately looking for the off switch, but I am not an android.

The last project I shot was my own short film that I wrote, produced, and directed. Produced is a bit of an understatement. I lost two producers along the way. Why? It could have been me, it could have been them, who knows. It wasn’t a good fit I guess. As it was my project, I did care a lot, but no one else did. Until one girl appeared out of nowhere and she cared. She cared about me, she cared about the project, and we got through it, together, side by side. It was like the first freelance project I did last year, but way better. Better in terms of harmony, better in terms of trust. Though everything that could go wrong with this project actually did go wrong. And I almost pulled the plug.

But all of that is only secondary to me. Primarily, with this project, I tore open old wounds. Wounds I was trying to heal since forever. Wounds that never actually healed though. And now, I am going on stage and say, here, see my scars. See what’s under my skin. The me that I thought I could hide for the last 21 years. The me whose only wish was to blend in. To be another fish in the pond. The me that never was another fish in the pond. (Though to some of you I was, and I love you for that. You know who you are.)

That’s what makes me not fine the most.

This lingering feeling in my tummy.

The uncertainty.