While at first, I thought I was slipping back in to my old life, a life I worked HARD to get away from, after talking with my mom (yes, my MOTHER) I actually feel better. Shocking as that may be, talking to my mother has put things in a different perspective.
You see, I have this best friend (of 10 years). She is a good natured soul and I believe she does, in fact, love me to death. I know if I was sick she would take care of me. I know if I was lonely she would keep me company. I know if I needed help she would do any and everything in her power to help me. However, she is currently hell bent on making a “tv-show” with me.
This project / grandiose idea, is producing multiple feelings at the same time inside of me. One minute I feel a surge of excitement, a thrilling and wild feeling inside me, a feeling I haven’t felt in quite some time, and at the same time, this “tv-show” is having an adverse affect, causing a major conflict within myself.
One the one hand, she is funny. We are funny together and there may really be viable material for a Saturday night live, or a comedy central bit. There is something free-ing about being able to act and say things that out of control. Part of me is liberated from the confines of a professional and usually boring commercial insurance industry when I hang out with her, or “film” things for the “show”. Moreover, if I am to be totally candid, I do think that there may be money in some of the ideas. I would kick my own ass if I missed an opportunity to prosper financially.
Yet, at the same time, acting and talking that out of control has become troubling to me. It is beginning to lead me into a direction I feel uncomfortable. I feel as if I am losing my own self- control. I find myself saying, thinking, and doing things, I would not normally do, say, or think- things -I wouldn’t even consider, without the “tv-show” medium as a catalyst.
I am worried about things, like, what if a company / insurance person from my real life accidentally saw me acting / behaving that way? What would happen to my career?
Even though, there are days when I loathe going in to the office, so much so, that the entire drive into work, I think of excuses I could use to call out sick with. I always make it into the office, because as much as I HATE having to write insurance coverage, it is the one and only constant, stable force in my life. That stability, that structure, that purpose, can NOT be disturbed. I would never have made it this far as an adult without my job.
My mother, suggested I try two things to feel better.
1. It is IMPERATIVE that I make absolute my boundaries to my best friend,without feeling guilty.
boundaries, as to what is and is not acceptable.
2. I keep my real self, separated from my “tv-show” self character.
I should not look at it as slipping into my old life, IF, I am able to maintain my normal life.
I need to look at the “tv-show” character just as it is, a CHARACTER, a marketable character I am playing.
The “tv-show” Mel, is not who I really am, she is only a fictional personality.
Here’s my dilemma….
1. I have a very hard time saying NO to the best friend. I always feel guilty when I do. I feel like I am letting her down, which is something she would NEVE R do to me.
Once, I even cut-her-off, from my life for a whole year, because she was too much to handle-too much to take-too much to be with, she was so overbearing in a possessive sort of how dare you spend time with anyone else sort of way.
She made her way back in my life when the love of her life died tradgically at such a young age. When I received the news, I was so taken back, my immediate reaction was to respond to her email. Therefore, she has been back, and a growing force ever since.
Also, I am not good at dealing with her emotional responses to me saying NO to her.
2. Is my mom right? Or, is what mom saying, only suspending reality for awhile before the repercussions of my actions explode.
I want to do the “tv-show” / I don’t want to do the “tv-show”
Oh… Me-Oh, what am I gunna do to get out of THIS one???
©Meleah Rebeccah
