Allowing Myself to Heal

I lost a friend this week. To a tragic end. I've lost three people in my life to what I consider tragic ends - my Dad, my friend Jesse and my best friend's father, Rudy. Unfortunately, I have to add one more man to that list. A man who's life was also cut short too soon at his own hand. My father ate himself to death, essentially. He gave up. I have no judgment about him or any of these men. I was reminded this week that we all have an inheritance and we choose to spend it how we want - we invest it or we have fun with it or we blow it and lose some of it or earn it back. Or we misspend it and lose it.

A lot of people around me are trying to heal. I am trying to heal because it brings back so many memories of my Dad back for me. I went to a memorial gathering for our friend at the beach on Saturday. I wore a faded red surfers sweatshirt, washed out jeans and 80s looking Nike trainers. I didn't realize it until I got to the beach, but I had dressed like my Dad. Dad had a faded red orange hoodie long sleeved t-shirt that he used to wear and then I used to wear it. He wore faded Levis. And the shoes reminded me of something vintage. I upgraded it, of course. I bought that sweatshirt from Scotch & Soda because it reminded me of him. The jeans are from Scotch & Soda as well. I favor a surf bum/ beach look from time to time. I brush my long bangs past my forehead so that they hover, but don't hang down. That was my Dad's look. I do things like that to feel like he's with me. I've become my Dad in a lot of ways. And I suppose that he's helping me heal over this recent loss without me completely being aware of it.

I also have to heal from the experience of being raised by my father. The aftermath of my father's death has been a real healing for me. I have had to learn to trust and love myself and not doubt myself and not apologize for myself. My Dad saw a special child in me and he was afraid for that special person. He was afraid it would be judged and ridiculed and destroyed. So he pushed it down. He made me feel ashamed for the things that made me special so that I wouldn't be hurt by them. I was too sensitive so he tried to harden me. I saw the film Moonlight two weekends ago and I just realized why that film resonates with me. The lead character Chiron goes from soft to lost to hard in such a dramatic way. And that's who I became. I am coming out of that in some ways now. I'm still hard, but I'm not afraid of being soft any more. That's my healing. That's the healing that has happened since my Dad died.

My friends will start to heal soon. And they will learn something from our friends death that will set them on their own journeys. I will be there to send them on their journeys if they need me to. Or to have a safe port to come back to.

I apologize for myself a lot because of the way I was raised. I have learned to do that less, but there are still remains of that former self. Fortunately, that's not who people see these days when they see me. They see a confident, successful guy. My friend David who asked me if I worry anymore and if I feel if I made it sees a successful, confident guy who acknowledges and believes his success. My friend Elizabeth who I met with over the weekend and who asked me if I want to work in network television, to which I responded without hesitation: YES, sees someone who's primed for that. She told me it takes a certain personality, which I have.

She also told me that the sample I use to get these network jobs have to have someone dying or capable of death. There has to be the sense that the stakes could be so high that death's possible. I had never heard this as a distinction in writing samples. And as I deal with death again this week, I remember that I never dealt with death in my work until my Dad died. It didn't exist in my work at all. But I've written two pilots where people die and one that's about the legacy someone's leaving behind when he does die. The three plays I have written since my Dad died all deal with death. I can write about death, if that's required. And if my Dad's death makes it easier for me to achieve all of the things that I've wanted - if it has made way for everything good to come after - then I am prepared to accept that as a gift. I told my Dad before he died that I knew he needed to go in order for me to be the person I was meant to be. And I knew that he knew it too. This is that belief coming to fruition and manifesting itself into my life.

Something has to die in order for something else to take its place. And that's my healing. I have to allow that healing. I have everything I want already - the life, the home, the community - I just have to pick up the keys and let myself in the door.

My intention is healing.
My intention is acceptance of my destiny.
My intention is acknowledgment that I am successful.
My intention is to look around me and see what exists.

I am grateful for the time to reflect.
I am grateful for the "I love yous" I've heard lately.
I am grateful for the life I lead.
I am grateful for the life left behind.
I am grateful for friendships that last a long time.