I'm rushing around before I leave town tomorrow for nine days in Portland with my brother and his family for the Christmas/Hannukah holiday extravaganza. When I got my haircut yesterday, I started to get a scratch in my throat! Fuck! Don't tell me I'm getting sick! I had to go to the local supermarket to get some Odwalla C-Monsters and some OJ. I'm also taking my zinc like a mad man. Well, I am shopping when I run into a woman who looks familiar. Blond, older, very pretty. We pass each other. Then we both look back.
I ask her, "Is your name, Mary?"
I told her my name and she smiled. This woman was active in the family ministry in my childhood parish. She remembered me and my family. We talked about my Dad and what a sweet guy he was. I always laugh when people say what I sweet guy my Dad was because he was very tough and not really the nicest guy. I laugh because I'm becoming my Dad. I have great affection and love for my friends. But I'm a tough cookie. That's my father's legacy.
This week, my manager had to negotiate my deal to go back on the show. We didn't get everything we wanted. But I got a major title bump, which will help me for future negotiations. I had to give up a teaching gig because of the show. And I'm waiting to find out if I'll be teaching at all next term. But I have learned to fight for what I want - and that's my Dad. My Dad's voice is the one that says, don't stop fighting and fuck 'em if they don't give you what you want. My Mom's voice is the one that makes sure the work gets done. My Dad talked a big game and my Mom delivered and persevered. I need both. Mom never believed she could do everything she could do. And Dad didn't follow through on his potential, but he thought he knew everything. And you need that in this business. Whether or not it's true, you have to believe that you know everything.
So back to Mary in the supermarket - we had a nice interaction. I saw her husband and I met their youngest son, who was a baby when I was in high school, so I never knew him. Apparently, he went to Harvard (according to my brother). I got a bit of the Ivy League vibe from him. I'm used to it. I'm friends with a lot of smart people and a lot of Ivy Leaguers, actually. When I got home, I kept replaying that scene in my mind of walking up to Mary and introducing myself. I realize that it does feel good to see people who knew you when you were a kid and to feel like you've done something with your life. Not that I live my life for others - my Dad taught me not to do that. But it helped me reflect on this past year.
I had dinner with a bunch of friends last night. Our waitress asked my friend Cory and I about our group because we seemed to have a good energy. He told her that we were all playwrights and good friends. Most of us are working in television/film as well. It was great to be with a group of people, who I'm connected to, but who are also connected to each other in other ways. Everyone at that table had a long history with each other - and our collective successes are a result of a lot of hard work. And none of that success happened for any of us in our 20s - and for some of us not even in our 30s. It was such a reminder of what happens when you stick to what you love doing and when you find a way to make money to continue doing what you love. I looked around that table and saw successful, happy people doing all sorts of great creative things. Some of us teach and some of us work for big franchises and some of us have development deals and some of us work for streaming and others work on network shows. We're all good people and we're all of the theatre. Something about sitting at that table made me feel like I had comrades. It made me feel like there's a seat for me at the table if this is the company I'm surrounded by. That was a nice way to end the year.
This has been an incredible year professionally for me. Last year at this time, I was dead broke, hoping that I could stretch my finances into the early part of the year when I would be then getting paid. I knew I had a teaching gig lined up. But I didn't have anything else. I did not know what the year was going to offer me and I just went into the new year with an open heart. Now I know that was the right approach because the Universe dreamt a bigger dream than I could for myself. I didn't hitch all of my hopes and dreams on one opportunity. At that point, I did know that the show was a possibility. But even then I was told not to get my hopes up. So I didn't.
I want to remember that for this next year. A lot of great things happened and I'm walking into the new year with a job. By the time I reach my next birthday in February, I will have had two TV jobs and gone from Staff Writer to Co-Producer. This birth year was the year I got my first TV gig and became a Co-Producer. Holy shit! I wrote the best play I've ever written this year as well. And it might be the play that defines this next period of my career. If I've learned anything over the past two years, it's that you can't predict what hits or doesn't hit. But that play has an authenticity in its voice that is so me. It's loud and it's insistent and it's annoying. It doesn't let go. The good thing is that I've kind of forgotten about it for the time being because nothing's happening with it right now. The play is in an incubatory period because it is being read by a bunch of places. The psychic I met at the Korean Spa in June said that my pilot was the thing that was going to make everything happen for me. I actually think he was talking about the play. That play's got a lot of energy. The pilot was what we talked about, but I was also working on the play at the time. If he's right, that means that 2017 is going to be crazier and busier than 2016. I already had to let go of one job for other things to happen. I might be letting go of my other teaching job as well. I don't want anything to hold me back and if those two classes are sandbags and I need to go higher into the stratosphere, then I'm ready to cut the rope.
My intention is love.
My intention is expansion.
My intention is growth.
My intention is celebration.
My intention is work.
My intention is magic and intuition.
My intention is 11.
I am grateful for friends.
I am grateful for colleagues.
I am grateful for compadres.
I am grateful for community.
I am grateful for possibility.
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