Paradigm Shift

I can't believe how convoluted this story is.

It started a few weeks ago. I was trying to think up a new story idea and I had a sudden brilliant thought. My story would involve a writer (me, basically) who wakes up and finds himself stuck in a world of his own making. But there's something wrong with the world that he's in - its heart/soul is dying. So the writer has to find the source of the problem and fix it. Only... what would be the source of the problem?

I realized that romance always sells so I began to devise a plot that involved finding a girl who was the source inspiration for all of his female characters (and all the female characters in the world that he was stuck in). The catch was that the female characters don't look like any girl he ever remembered meeting. So the writer has to retrace his life history to find this source girl who so inspired him. (I really thought this would give my female actress something to do - playing a whole bunch of different variations of one main source character).

Now this is where the story starts to get convoluted. You see, in thinking back on my own life to try and find a source character that could serve as an inspiration for this main female character, I actually remembered a girl that I had known many many years before who, now that I thought about it, really was an inspirational source for all of my female characters. But the thing is, this girl was someone I had known when I was in third grade.

You see, there was a brief period in third grade of about two weeks where I was in love. As I recall, a new boy came into the class and had no friends. The teacher decided that I'd be a good friend, so she asked me if I would play with him at recess. Well, I did and we had fun. But this boy had a twin sister who was in another class. As she didn't have anyone to play with either, besides her brother, she joined us. Well, she was beautiful, spirited, funny, and full of joy. I was like a moth to the flame. We played at every recess and after school every day for that entire period. And I even walked home with her after we finished playing. Of course I was in third grade and to me she was just a friend.

At the end of two weeks, she didn't come to school. I went to her house after school, but nobody was there. I found out the next day that there had been a divorce and the kids went to live in Sacramento. I never saw her again and I was really crushed.

In looking back on it, I suddenly realized that the things that I find attractive in women were the qualities this young girl had. So, in this case, art was indicating life. I was following the path of my own plot.

Now, the nebulousness of my thinking really took over. With this sudden revelation I began to see the world in a new light. I realized that my one truly decent relationship had been doomed all along because as much as I loved my ex-girlfriend, she was nothing like the young lady in third grade. My Ex was very similar at first, which is what attracted me to her, but as time went on, she grew further and further from those attributes that had attracted me in the first place. I overcompensated for this lack of attributes by trying to change, which led me to join the Navy, to try and become a serious writer, and generally everything else that has followed. I left behind the things that had made me happy in order to become someone that could maintain a relationship that was never going to work. When the relationship fell apart, I no longer had that ME to fall back on - I had changed so much that I didn't recognize myself. I realized that I had stopped being myself so many years before and that I'd been kind of stuck in this person that wasn't really myself ever since. See... nebulous.

What does it all mean? Now, this is where it gets interesting.

So here I am, being bombarded with one revelation after the next about who I am and what I want and how come I haven't felt the same as I did 25 years ago for a long time, and suddenly I realize that the one thing that I've been missing the most is Joy.

Joy. With a capitol J. As in the sort of light-hearted, pure spirited unconditional love that bubbles over from your center and makes you glow with giddiness. I used to be full of it. I used to drink it like soda. The last place I experienced it? You guessed it.

Kenya.

It all made sense now. 25 years before, lost and confused about my relationship with the girl I loved enough to propose to, I set out to join the Navy to make something of myself, but also to find out who I was. I have spent years looking for that answer, but there was no answer forthcoming. I learned patience. I went back to God. I learned to give back, to love my neighbors. I learned film making for some reason. And then, I went to Kenya and rediscovered Joy. The one thing I'd been missing all along. The one piece of the puzzle that I hadn't yet placed. Why show me Joy? God showed me Joy so that I might be healed and become whole again - so that I might come full circle.

I'm right back where I was when I was 16, except that I'm 24 years older and wiser. I've been given permission to go back to being who I was back then - to let go and be the insane Will that I remember. I spent the first 16 years of my life confidently drawing outside the lines, and the last 24 learning to draw inside the lines in order to impress some girl who did not have any Joy inside of her. I'm ready to draw outside the lines again. I'm going to restore the heart and soul to a world of my creation.