micah takes photographs

I just got off the phone with sasha, and because the realization was so important, I need to document it.

She called me to tell me her thoughts about a movie we watched tonight. i’d found it so hopeful, and inspiring, and she was not so sure. she called to tell me she thought the main character was selfish – he had gone through the entire movie not thinking of anyone but himself. His wife, though also lost, had tried to improve their life together, only to be turned away, numbly. His son had run away from home, and the main character didn’t do any more than read the note he’d left and sit down. He felt so completely numb, and closed off, until he opened up to this girl, this girl he happened to love, and suddenly felt things.

I couldn’t disagree on how selfish he was, but I still felt as strongly hopeful, and didn’t like him any less. It concerned me a bit how much I related to him, and all of a sudden, we started talking about my innermost emotions.

The last time I felt so fulfilled was just before I left California, and when I went back a year later to regain that feeling, things had changed. I had tried moving to Boston, to find it no different. I had tried moving home, to the same effect. I tried going to bars, shows, dates. Things I didn’t want to do, but figured people would be there. I hung out with friends, and I didn’t understand why sometimes I could still drive home feeling unsatisfied, as if after an entire evening together, we’d only really chatted about the weather.

It took a while of opening up before I realized much at all. I admitted, out loud to a real human being, how lonely I’ve been. How much I hold myself responsible for my own unhappiness in the past year. How I feel like I failed by leaving LA in the first place, leaving a fantastic happy Micah to be a depressed and despondent one, but that all the things I’d tried, moving from Boston to LA again, and everything in between, had failed horribly. I didn’t expect there was anything more I could do – that I’ve felt that no matter what I try, I can’t get it right. I said all these things out loud to a person, quite probably for the first time.

And here’s where the hope comes in, and here’s where the benefit of it lies. She saw things differently, she let me get things out, she analyzed a bit. It isn’t that I haven’t been trying to change my state of mind; maybe I’ve been going about it the wrong way. But I truly did not know the right way, I felt like I’d tried everything. I had only myself to count on, and I beat myself up for making the mistakes I’ve made. She didn’t tell me not to – she suggested that I might need to open up to people. I’m so closed, I really am. I haven’t talked about any of this. I’m not honest all the time, and I just don’t trust people besides myself. And I’m starting to not trust myself, while I’m at it. People are best when they count on other people, when they lean and let lean, when they push and pull, but most of what I’ve been doing is pushing.

I’ve taught myself to be confident before – to trust my instincts, to be proud of the things I do, to appreciate most of who I am. And learning those things was what made California as great as it was. But in that time, I had one very convenient tool at my disposal. I was in a school, surrounded by people like me, surrounded by tons of people that were easy to meet. And I worked on all the other parts, except how to meet and trust and appreciate other people, because it was provided for me. But now, and for the past year, I haven’t had that. And that’s the piece, that I can see now at least, that’s missing. And shit, that’s just one piece, I’ve done more difficult things with less to go on before. I can do that.

Really, this past year I’ve felt a whole lot of hopeless, and opening up tonight gave me a little hope. Which, at the moment, looks like proof that this could work. A little hope makes a huge difference.