I have never done this before so...
2 different beginnings to the same story. It's not like I'm forcing you to read, but I'd love to have your opinion on which one looks better. Maybe it will help me clarify things. So, I'd be grateful if you took a look and just tell me which you'd prefer? You don't even have to bother with the whys. Gee, I'm such a beggar, aren't I?
People thought I was going crazy. That was okay. I thought so, too.
After I stopped getting propositions - and those few roles that were still, inanely, offered to me I rejected in order to protect whatever little pride I was left - I’d spend most of my days either lying in bed or locked up in my study. In bed, I tossed and turned with dreams of unfulfilled longing. In my study, in front of my laptop, I tried, or so I claimed, to make sense out of the chaos that was suddenly my life. My therapist told me that if I wrote the steps down, if I could locate reasons and incidents, if I could rationalize the entire thing, the fear would go away.
“But I’m not afraid,” I told him. I was sitting on his couch, and even though I had been there too often lately, I still couldn’t feel at ease. I slid my ass on the very edge of the leather cushions, ready to jump up and go once our 45 minutes were up.
The mental image of myself, that of a hunching, timid adult with his hands decorously resting on his lap was completely at odds with what I imagined myself to be when I was on the stage. Up there I was an Olympian God, as mighty and as punitive, I was a King, I was the various facets of the human condition. Down here, on my therapist’s couch I was nothing but a nervous, quivering mess, too polite to acknowledge the truth.
To put it simply, I was losing it.
Instead, I tried to appease my therapist, convince him that things were not as bad as they looked. But what had brought me there was not something I imagined. Recurrent thoughts of suicide, loss of sleep and appetite, sudden bouts of anger and tears, aggression towards my wife and sixteen year old son.
She said, my wife that is, if you don’t get help, I’m gone. So I did get help but nothing much happened. I still was unable to act. And with my super-power gone, I was just like everyone else, a common human. How could I explain this to my wife, or my friends, or even my therapist, without sounding extremely stuck-up? Even to my shrink, I wanted to maintain the image of the good, polite, harmless guy. Humbleness was one of my greatest attributes when I was at the peak of my career, and how lowly it would be to lose it now that I had this misfortune.
They say that what not kills us makes us stronger. They say that it is in our darkest, most difficult hours that we find our inner strength. What a load of bull.
“You have to give it time,” Dr. Roth said. “Every artist goes through times of uncreativeness. And every human being have their dry spells. They’re just phases and you have to persist through the rough patches. Writers have their writer’s blocks. Actors like you experience something similar. It will come back to you, you have to trust me.”
Everything said that. It will come back to me. But I knew better, it was gone for good. Maybe I had exhausted whatever talent I had. Or maybe talent, this gift, like so many other gifts, has an expiration date.
AND:
Deanna knocked on the door, persistently calling my name.
“Ari? Are you all right? Ari - answer me.”
I had been staring into the little black hole of my gun muzzle for the last two hours.
“Ari, please.” She was using her firm school-teacher tone on me. I blinked without taking my gaze off this small blind eye, imagined its barrel was a long twisting tunnel that would lead me to some magical place.
“Yes…” I made my voice loud enough so she could hear me through the door. I felt her relax.
“Dinner is about to be served.” She sounded confused. I, on the other hand, sounded vague.
“Be right down.” I gave one last dubious look at the piece of old machinery I had been holding, snorted loudly and dropped it back into my drawer. I brought my palm against my nose; the smell of metal, accentuated by my sweat, was too strong, almost sickening. I imagined the hole in the back of my skull spewing out this smell along with gun-powder smoke and blood.
I got up, my knees crackled, I felt pathetic for a moment and then braced myself for dinner with the family.
I had decided I was going to do it afterwards, with the good ol’ fashioned combination of pills and booze. As the famous words go: I just want to be left alone.
That night I stayed up, trying to find the resolve to somehow do it. As the night faded into grayness, I broke down and started sobbing. I had committed suicide on stage so many times, I thought real suicide would be a piece of cake.
In the morning, I called and made an appointment with a therapist.
- - - -
I wasn’t really crazy. I was just a man without a purpose in his life. This alone can drive you mad, little by little, day by day.
It started one and a half years ago. I stopped being able to act.
People thought I was going crazy. That was okay. I thought so, too.
After I stopped getting propositions - and those few roles that were still, inanely, offered to me I rejected in order to protect whatever little pride I was left - I’d spend most of my days either lying in bed or locked up in my study. In bed, I tossed and turned with dreams of unfulfilled longing. In my study, in front of my laptop, I tried, or so I claimed, to make sense out of the chaos that was suddenly my life. My therapist told me that if I wrote the steps down, if I could locate reasons and incidents, if I could rationalize the entire thing, the fear would go away.
“But I’m not afraid,” I told him. I was sitting on his couch, and even though I had been there too often lately, I still couldn’t feel at ease. I slid my ass on the very edge of the leather cushions, ready to jump up and go once our 45 minutes were up.
The mental image of myself, that of a hunching, timid adult with his hands decorously resting on his lap was completely at odds with what I imagined myself to be when I was on the stage. Up there I was an Olympian God, as mighty and as punitive, I was a King, I was the various facets of the human condition. Down here, on my therapist’s couch I was nothing but a nervous, quivering mess, too polite to acknowledge the truth.
To put it simply, I was losing it.
Instead, I tried to appease my therapist, convince him that things were not as bad as they looked. But what had brought me there was not something I imagined. Recurrent thoughts of suicide, loss of sleep and appetite, sudden bouts of anger and tears, aggression towards my wife and sixteen year old son.
She said, my wife that is, if you don’t get help, I’m gone. So I did get help but nothing much happened. I still was unable to act. And with my super-power gone, I was just like everyone else, a common human. How could I explain this to my wife, or my friends, or even my therapist, without sounding extremely stuck-up? Even to my shrink, I wanted to maintain the image of the good, polite, harmless guy. Humbleness was one of my greatest attributes when I was at the peak of my career, and how lowly it would be to lose it now that I had this misfortune.
They say that what not kills us makes us stronger. They say that it is in our darkest, most difficult hours that we find our inner strength. What a load of bull.
“You have to give it time,” Dr. Roth said. “Every artist goes through times of uncreativeness. And every human being have their dry spells. They’re just phases and you have to persist through the rough patches. Writers have their writer’s blocks. Actors like you experience something similar. It will come back to you, you have to trust me.”
Everything said that. It will come back to me. But I knew better, it was gone for good. Maybe I had exhausted whatever talent I had. Or maybe talent, this gift, like so many other gifts, has an expiration date.
AND:
Deanna knocked on the door, persistently calling my name.
“Ari? Are you all right? Ari - answer me.”
I had been staring into the little black hole of my gun muzzle for the last two hours.
“Ari, please.” She was using her firm school-teacher tone on me. I blinked without taking my gaze off this small blind eye, imagined its barrel was a long twisting tunnel that would lead me to some magical place.
“Yes…” I made my voice loud enough so she could hear me through the door. I felt her relax.
“Dinner is about to be served.” She sounded confused. I, on the other hand, sounded vague.
“Be right down.” I gave one last dubious look at the piece of old machinery I had been holding, snorted loudly and dropped it back into my drawer. I brought my palm against my nose; the smell of metal, accentuated by my sweat, was too strong, almost sickening. I imagined the hole in the back of my skull spewing out this smell along with gun-powder smoke and blood.
I got up, my knees crackled, I felt pathetic for a moment and then braced myself for dinner with the family.
I had decided I was going to do it afterwards, with the good ol’ fashioned combination of pills and booze. As the famous words go: I just want to be left alone.
That night I stayed up, trying to find the resolve to somehow do it. As the night faded into grayness, I broke down and started sobbing. I had committed suicide on stage so many times, I thought real suicide would be a piece of cake.
In the morning, I called and made an appointment with a therapist.
- - - -
I wasn’t really crazy. I was just a man without a purpose in his life. This alone can drive you mad, little by little, day by day.
It started one and a half years ago. I stopped being able to act.