Like most humans, love and connection has always been a huge focus in my life. I didn’t realize, however, that this love did not have to be reserved for other people and things outside of myself. Creativity was my first love. Ever since I was at least 12 years old, I’d been drawn to movies and filmmaking. When I was going through depressive periods in my life and feeling sad, lonely, and misunderstood (which was often), watching coming of age and romance movies on bootleg websites comforted me, made me feel less alone, and gave me hope that things could get better. Journaling and writing stories made me feel like my feelings and thoughts were important and my ideas mattered. Watching a movie I emotionally connected with in the movie theater felt euphoric and equivalent to being high on drugs. The intimacy of watching a movie alone at night in my bedroom was incomparable to what I’d experience with any clueless teenage boy. Thank God my crushes weren’t texting me back because I’d much prefer the viruses my computer got from watching movies on illegal websites to STD’s that inconsiderate teenage boys likely carried as a result of insisting not to wear condoms. I couldn’t count on my crushes liking me back, but movies were always there for me.
I didn’t enjoy school, except on days I was presenting a video I made for a project. I was a tiny, awkward, soft spoken young black girl, and consequently, often a target for bullying. This made me feel small and insignificant, but making videos made me feel powerful. I was more than just my looks and my stature. Making videos gave me a voice and my peers would for a few minutes be forced to listen. The night before projects were being presented felt akin to the night before Christmas. I’d wake up to the gift of potentially being truly seen.
The Mitchells vs. the Machines (2021)
I’d watch the videos I made over and over again until watching it gave me a certain feeling. This feeling temporarily brought me out of reality, but simultaneously made me feel alive. The potential that I could facilitate this experience for someone else brought me a sense of purpose I had never experienced. I struggled a lot with my confidence growing up, and I was completely self taught, but for some reason, I was proud of the videos I made. I believed in them and in my eye, my taste, and my artistic choices. Despite these experiences, I rarely explored filmmaking beyond creating a project for a class. I thought majoring in film or communications and pursuing a career in film was a recipe for wasting hundreds of thousands of dollars, so I didn’t. I wasn’t able to bring myself to create much just for fun. I required the external validation of getting an A on an assignment and knowing my classmates would at some point be forced to watch my final product. I neglected this part of myself and as a result, our connection fizzled out.
Being a hopeless romantic, black romance movies always had a strong hold on me. However, in my opinion, there has always been a lack of high quality ones to choose from. On top of that, I had a strange relationship with Love Jones. I remember telling my friend I liked Love and Basketball more because their careers and their lives felt more practical and relatable to me. After I said that, a puzzled look formed on her face, and she asked me,
”It seems more realistic to become a professional basketball player than a writer/photographer to you?”
When she said that, I had to pause and think about why me, someone who had not played basketball since they were 7 and swore off contact sports for eternity after once being elbowed in the nose, still subconsciously thought that a life as a professional basketball player was more realistic than doing something creative, being a filmmaker or a writer, something I’d been drawn to for as long as I could remember and never truly left my mind.
“In men’s basketball, for example, there is only a .03% chance of a pro career. This means that of the almost 156,000 male, high school senior basketball players only 44 will be drafted to play in the NBA after college, and only 32 women (.02%) out of just over 127,000 female, high school senior players will eventually be drafted.” - A quote from The Sport’s Digest
Maybe it was because my mom played basketball in college and Love and Basketball was one of her favorite movies. Maybe it was because there was no one close to me that I knew of who was a full time artist and could show me the path. Or maybe it was because I wanted to be a writer and a filmmaker so bad that I convinced myself it was not even possible. That way, I wouldn’t have to try and I could therefore never fail at something that meant so much to me. In contrast, trying and failing at something I was never truly passionate about felt much more doable… until it didn’t.
My plan since around 9th grade was to major in public health or something related to it, get a Masters in Public Health, and then find a career in that area. I had a lot of family members that had passed prematurely from lifestyle related causes including my maternal grandma, and I had an interest in improving health outcomes for black people and other vulnerable populations. When I told people about my plans, they would often call them “noble”. This made me feel good, but it also felt like something I couldn’t take credit for. If I was being honest with myself, it was a noble thing to do, and I did have and still have many personal connections with the issue, but after completing several public health internships, it became clear that dedicating my life to doing that work was not something that necessarily lit me up inside. It felt more like the partner you settle down with because you feel like you’re running out of time, the one that looks great on paper, but there was always that one that got away that you never truly forgot about.
I always saw creative careers as impractical, something only irresponsible, careless, and reckless people do, and I did not identify as any of those things, so therefore, I never even considered pursuing a creative career. I was a 4.0 student with a clear, practical and noble plan for their future. That’s who I decided I was when I was 14 at least, and I held onto that identity for dear life, never daring to loosen my grip and explore other options. I thought that if I gave that up, I’d have nothing. I’d be nothing. So I suppressed my true interests out of fear of losing my identity and out of a lack of confidence and faith in myself that I’d be able to construct a new one that felt better to me.
My repressed urges to express myself manifested as depression. I didn’t know this was the reason for a while, and boys seemed to start finding me more attractive as I grew older, so I continued to suffer, filling my voids with social media, excessive masturbation and sex, physical and metaphorical plan bs (lol), all of which never truly satiated my needs for fulfillment. They were quick hits that ultimately left me feeling more empty and depleted. But in November 2021, towards the end of my first semester as a senior in college, I had a breakdown. My soul was rejecting this watered down life I had just accepted for so long. I finally gave myself the permission to remove the things in my life that were not in alignment and give into my creative urges.
In the past, my depression felt like it never left me except for in short sprints. There would be a few hours or days where I was really happy and content, but deep sadness would always be right around the corner. However, after deciding to take the leap and truly invest in my passions, I experienced the longest stretch of peace and excitement for life I ever had in my life. I felt like a new person who had just been granted their dream life. I could finally remove this mask that had been suffocating me for 21 years and breathe easily. I could be the person I was truly meant to be. It was likely a result of feeling truly free to express myself creatively like I never had before, and graduating from college, being free of this school structure that often felt oppressive, stressful, constricting and overwhelming. I desired a non traditional life. I could let go. I no longer was rushing to find the perfect job with benefits and a perfect husband and have two kids, a big house, and a white picket fence all before I turned 30. I could create my own life from scratch and question if the things society pushed on me were things I truly wanted. I was reunited with the love of my life and pregnant with creative ideas and I was eager to nurture the person carrying them like I never had been before and eventually share my beautiful creations with the world.
This was a nice period in my life, but little did I know, while it did last longer than I had experienced in the past, it would not last forever. I had reconnected with my first love, but this was just the honeymoon phase. There was so much work to be done. I had to repair the damage that neglecting myself and my passions over the years had created. Post grad depression, limiting beliefs, and the realities of pursuing a creative career in our current economic system had not yet set in.
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