Best Laid Plans: Episode 2.5 - A Confession...

Best Laid Plans is a documentary web series that asks: what do you do when life throws you a curve ball? In this episode, I use my at-home camera to assess where I am in this whole journey so far...

Breaking News - A Best Laid Plans Update

Whew! The holidays have passed and now we're fully immersed in 2011. Is it just me, or does 2011 sound like some crazy space-aged time warp that runs counter to us not yet having flying cars and teleportation? Anyone? Anyone?

Okay, never mind, moving on...

Great news for my "Best Laid Plans" followers - remember how this whole project was meant to conclude as a documentary? Well, some decisions have been made and "Best Laid Plans" will have its debut in the next month or so as a documentary web series (I promise an exact date soon). I spent a number of days over the holiday break mulling over the copious amounts of footage and... whoa. Looking back - seeing how heartbroken I was. Seeing how the failure of my marriage weighed on me was a profound experience to say the least. Memories of feelings are nothing compared with video diaries, and I guess I wasn't prepared for having to revisit those emotions. But I did and I have, and I'm sure that won't be the last time I'm put off guard by having to take in once again all that I said and felt at the time.

They say you should never do your own video editing and I can really see why. It's a challenge to choose footage based on content rather than based on where I think I look the best. Having to push out thoughts such as do i really sound like that??? or why the hell didn't anyone tell me how bad that shirt looks on me! is a challenge for sure. In reviewing tape of one sit down with friends I had the unfortunate realization that I basically ate the entire time. Nothing like an interview to make you peckish, I guess. So there I was, starting at myself, eating... and then talking... and then eating some more. Oy.

Moving on, once again.

So... there's the update! A documentary web series. Sometime in the next month or so.

That is if I can get passed the sound of my own voice :)

This I Believe

Shooting for and writing on the BLP blog has, understandably, made me incredibly contemplative about the breakup of my marriage. I think it's for this reason that this period of my life has generated so much creative work. The work hasn't necessarily come from the heartbreak - rather - its developed more from this time since being heartbroken. Recently, I've been thinking a lot about what the failure of my marriage means for me as a potential partner. I wonder if long-term relationships are something I'm even good at. Can I use the things that went wrong as lessons to learn from and avoid in future relationships, or is the failure just a sign that I'm perhaps not a good partner? In all likelihood the answer lies in the middle somewhere, but it's a question I've definitely been contemplating. It's funny then that this morning, I should receive an email telling me that an essay I'd written some time ago has been published on the website for: This I Believe . It's titled, "Relationships: Frieda-Style" and it's a review of my marriage as seen through my grandmother's fictional relationship self-help book. Maybe my personal contemplation can resonate for someone else who's struggled in their marriage?

Give it a read and let me know your thoughts: http://thisibelieve.org/essay/84161/

Best Laid Plans Where You Live

So... I realize that I haven’t written in awhile. I wish I could say that I’ve had a good excuse, but alas, I have nothing to offer you other than being in the midst of some things that made it difficult to take a step back and assess. In short, I’ve been avoiding you. That’s right people... I have been avoiding a blog! But hear we are – almost a year since I left for Ghana.

But I have news... First – check out the cool logo for the film that Melissa Jernigan at OTL created for me! I think she did a great job and am grateful to her for her patience in my not knowing what sort of graphic best summarized the project. Big thanks to her!

Second, while I, again, cannot really get into some of the details of what’s occurred in my situation I will say this. It is a SMALL world out there in a very big way. People talk about how huge NYC is, but truly, NY’ers (at least my friends have agreed with this), often stick to their small neighborhood most of the time. You create your own little safe haven in the midst of the city’s noisy chaos. Certainly for me, I’ve had to work at creating a whole new existence in my own neighborhood. Since it’s the same place that I moved into as a married person, all of my beginning memories of living there were associated with that identity. And then breakups happen and you find out how amazing it is that the simplest things trigger monumental emotional recollections – such as walking your dog, or going to certain restaurants. In the beginning of this process, your neighborhood is like a dysfunctional home that feels both safe and like its inundated with land mines. But then, the more things you do on your own, the more territory you take back and fill with new happenings, the more the “safety” scale tips in your direction. It’s your home again.

Neighborhood, by definition (I even looked this up), means “an area surrounding a particular place, person or object”.

Perhaps that’s why then, while chillaxing around my neighborhood with my dog, I was pretty jarred by seeing my past hanging out with his future only blocks from where we lived. Life winked at me in the form of a very jarring reminder that people don’t operate under the same rules. Perhaps nobody is right or wrong, but you learn quickly that the feeling of safety that you’ve built is shaky. If you assume that people have the same life rules that you do, and you create your world with that assumption in mind, you can, like me, be pummeled by the fact that that is wrong, wrong, wrong! So here I am again, learning something new. I’m growing people! If only the emotional growth could expand to my actual physical growth I’d be smiling from ear to ear! Looking back, there’s been so much disappointment this year – so many surprises that I wasn’t at all prepared for or deserved. There were things that I was so sure of a year ago but now realize I was completely wrong. But I’m not in charge of any of those things. Sometimes I can’t help but let the disappointment wash over me and follow me around, but other times, I’ve realized that what I can also do is simply focus on the things I am in control of and surround myself with people who operate under similar life rules as my own. And maybe that’s not a best laid plan, but it’s the best I’ve got right now.