As I was driving toward Houston yesterday morning, the warmth of the sun through my window sure felt comforting after the blast of cold weather we’d experienced of late. I had a chance to reflect, in a very EMDR (cheaply) therapy way just how I was going to continue this new found energy toward “my rebirth” of sorts.

Dusting off the old editors cut of the rough edit of my film was both awakening and frustrating. Now it was my turn to tweak it toward the final edit of the project, my baby, my little gem, my film.

My son, now 7 loved watching “his DVD” several times with me the night before. He was only 2 3/4 at the time it was shot and he had a small part. He was insistent that we watch it over and over, which was great because each time I saw subtle differences.  I was also grateful to have this little time capsule of his toddlerhood. I am very much the cobbler who’s children have no shoes. I don’t have any video or film other than this of my son’s childhood. Thank goodness for still photographs & video capability on cell phones.

I still really have so much work to do on this project. It occurred to me that could have been why I just couldn’t deal with it for a while when I was going through the divorce. I was in so much pain at the time. I can usually manage to do 100 things—a champ at multitasking, but that 101st thing is gonna have to wait.

Last week I did manage to call a few old work friends to ask around about what going rates were for freelance editors these days. Talked to an audio engineer friend that will do the small audio fix for FREE! Just what my ears like to hear when you are funding a project yourself.  I also talked to a few of the freelancers at the company I work for to see if they were interested in working on a project. I don’t know what I was so worried about. Everyone seemed to be surprised that I had an old project just sitting around and glad to help.

Watching it also made me feel a little melancholy because one of the lead actors and I aren’t friends anymore. Randy* did an amazing job on the project. He was an underrated talent that was usually cast in character roles, here he was the lead. He had also introduced me to the woman Gennie* that would play opposite him. Randy and I had worked together before on other successful projects. As the scriptwriter on this project I was able to tailored this part to him and was happy to do so, he was my good friend, or so I thought. . .

Sometimes, the stress of the process makes for strange outcomes.

*The names have been changed in this blog to provide privacy for those mentioned.