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On another note, I was driving along in my car this weekend thinking as usual (I totally zone out in the car; it’s dangerous, I know) and I was thinking about Ewan Mcgregor because I had just read a really good interview with him last Friday. He was talking about how 7 years ago he stopped drinking and he hasn’t had one drop since the day he decided to stop.
Not one.
And you know what his reason for stopping was? Because he woke up one day and asked himself what drinking brought to his life and when he decided that it was nothing worth fighting for, he just let it go. Just like that.

I’m so envious of people like that. People who just decide something and then just do it. I know, you’re probably thinking ‘well, it’s that simple. You could too.’
But it’s not that simple. Well, I don’t know. It hasn’t been for me. I’m still stuck on that First Step. But hearing my idols talk about that stuff, really helps put things in perspective when I get all jumbled up in my mind with too many thoughts and not enough action.
And then as I was thinking about Ewan, I had another random Idol thought. I started to think about Angelina Jolie. It occurred to me that she’s kind of the face of changing lanes, isn’t she? Going from the bad girl who cuts herself, collects knives, and wears vials of blood around her neck to a worldly humanitarian, Goodwill ambassador, and mother of 6!
Talk about deciding one day to be different! I would love to pick her brain…ask her how she did that. How she went from one kind of person to another and so seamlessly at that? Did it start as a spark? Just a thought? An interest? Or did she wake up one day and tell herself that it was time to change and change drastically?
I made a list this weekend of those themes that have sort of carried through my life; which directions I’ve been pulled to. It’s always been a cross between Art and being out in the World – pulled in two directions.
When I was an adolescent I wanted to find the cure for cancer, join the Peace Corps, be a conservationist, and work in Jungles researching things (what? Well, I didn’t know that part). But I also wanted to write and make films and (maybe) act. I didn’t know which.
I was afraid to call myself an artist. I remember thinking that when I was choosing schools. I chose the one school that intimidated me the most and it was the only one I applied to and I got in. There I was surrounded by artists; intense people who all seemed to know what they were doing and I still felt like I was floundering a bit. There were other things going on in my life as well, which probably didn’t help but I think I just didn’t know how I was supposed to feel. Where does that passion come from ? Was I just faking it?
Some days I felt like I was.
I had some professors who really seemed to back me up (almost to my annoyance at times because they wouldn’t let up on me). They saw something in me that they wanted to help grow. Looking back, it was probably just a questioning that I had (and still obviously have); a need to make meaning out of the chaos and observe behaviors.
I always wanted to create – to express myself. But there was always something in me that felt selfish about the creativity – the egos involved, the utter self-absorption it takes for people to market themselves and keep trying over and over that I had a hard time getting behind. I wanted to make a living at writing but I wanted to do it my way.
I wanted to do it from my house in the country behind closed doors surrounded by family – not on the world stage as much; not as some puppet of the studio system.
I had a few years where I was just writing to write and those were good years. I didn’t care about publishing or what people thought. I lived in my stories and they poured out of me. In that pure place, it’s the most addictive feeling in the world; when characters take on lives of their own and surprise you; when you are sitting there believing you’re removed enough to get the right words down and suddenly tears are flowing down your cheeks or you laugh out loud because the story you’re creating has sucked you in and made you an audience member more than the creator.
I LOVE THAT FEELING!
I really do. That’s the feeling I chase when I think about writing for a living. I really could give a crap about everything else.
Can that sustain my life? I don’t know.
I don’t think so.
I want a family of my own (which I hope will come with time). I want to get out of my own way enough to do something in this world that helps other people.
Something that has nothing to do with me at all. (I’m so tired of me!)
Is it a coincidence that most of my idols are people who seem to balance their creative lives with their family lives with their humanitarian lives?
I think not. Ashley Judd, Ewan Mcgregor, Paul Newman, Angelina Jolie, Kris Carr, Maya Angelou to name a few. These people are my teachers. They light a fire in me and try to get me to remember what’s important, to branch out, to finally listen to the voice within that is trying to show me the way to go.
This weekend Angie and Ewan stepped up to the plate.
And all I can say is, ‘I’m listening. ‘ and ‘thank you.’