Dear Writer Director Letter #92

I’m grieving an old pain I will never feel again. I’m different, so it will all be different.

Self Portrait. 3.14.25.

Dear Writer Director,

I’m grieving an old pain I will never feel again. I’m different, so it will all be different.

I love watching the music videos of female popstars. They give voice to their perspective in so many situations I have found myself in. I just watched “Closer” by Tegan and Sarah, and a few others by Bebe Rhexa, Halsey, and Rihanna. Worlds I know are not really found in TV shows or films. I only see myself reflected in these small, abstract places.

We have all been living in a world that didn’t register emotions or meaning as real. We have been pretending that the nuances, the ambiguity, the details between us all are inconsequential, but really, that’s all there is. There’s no fixed anything. It’s foolish of people to think that any of us can latch onto things and keep them. The reality of life is much more dynamic and loving than that. Care is expressed in tiny moments. I’ve always been able to feel what others are feeling. I can’t explain or put a label on their insides, but I have had that potent empathy since I was a child. I can’t tell you the cause or source of what truly ails one, but I’ve never been wrong about noticing.

I have been told I was wrong, and it has always come in the form of a defensive lash out. Now I know when people are defensive, it’s because you saw something in them that they didn’t want you to see. I rarely get defensive, but sometimes I do, and I try and notice what I’m secure about, so I can address it. I feel like others are starting to become more that way. I’m sensing new levels of generosity and understanding from most directions.

I’m grieving an old pain I will never feel again. I will never psychoanalyze or bother explaining a theory about why someone is behaving the way they are. I will simply know they’re in pain and pay attention to what they do with that. If I can offer something that might be able to help them, I will. That’s being a good human, and that’s just good business. More and more people in my life have been doing that for me as well when they see me upset.

I will never again twist myself into knots because I can’t control someone else. If my attention drifts too far to someone else’s perspective, I simply notice and bring it back to mine. I’m not trying to run away from my own mind anymore. I’m perfectly comfortable wading through all of what’s going on in here. Music videos help and writing these letters and recording episodes of my podcast and working on my films give me plenty of portals into myself. Then sharing them with the world really allows me to see how all this work can spark something in others. There’s nothing more holy and impactful than that exchange between creator and audience.

“Closer” by Tegan and Sarah holds special significance. I blasted it all Summer in 2013 when I had newly fallen for my first Chicago artist. He was really hard working, and we had a lot of fun together, and he just made me want to get closer. Even after we broke up, that song came back into my life when that familiar sense of play busted open my rib cage. It felt like the way spring rolls into Chicago in early March and suddenly, as if out of nowhere, I am wearing shorts and standing in the breeze on my back porch. I don’t associate that song with a particular person anymore but with a feeling. “Without Me” by Halsey has the opposite effect. I remember what it was like to feel resentful because I spent so much time and energy building up some man while I went completely ignored for my hard work. I remember what it was like to give everything to someone and still feel invisible. Halsey’s style in that video reminds me of mine now, but my life couldn’t be further from the one she reenacts on screen as if frozen in a time capsule.

I’m sober completely now. I quit alcohol a year ago, and I quit weed January 1^st. There’s no more vices to run to. I simply let myself feel whatever I feel and then I try to decipher what it means, and then I go with my gut and see what happens. I don’t know exactly when my gut switched from being destructive to restorative, but I did feel the change slowly. I did witness it happen. For so much of my life, I thought my fears were stronger than my hopes. Then I hit rock bottom and realized that all there is is hope. Fear is fleeting. When the worst happens and you survive, you realize there wasn’t much to fear, after all.

Dear Writer Director, if you haven’t reached this point yet, I hope you do soon. I hope you get to see yourself in more than just music videos very shortly. I’m excited for all of the art that will be released, and all of the artists who will rise to prominence for their communities. I’m ecstatic at what’s happening with this whole finding my people across this country and across the Internet, one by one. I feel the magic of that song “Closer” for so much more now than just the first sparks of romance.

I’m grieving an old pain I will never feel again. I’m different, so it will all be different. In the absence of darkness, there’s only light.

Love,

O