On My Absence

Earlier this month I happened across a call for entries for memoirs, and I decided to write about the week that Hal died.  I spent several days writing and revising my contest entry, crying the entire time.  Writing the memoir seemed to serve two purposes:  First, at this point I want to have published something about Hal so he can be memorialized, and this means more to me than being acknowledged as an author of something publishable.  Second, it was cathartic.  For a while I felt better.

So I started working on a love story.  I’d been thinking about it for a while, but wanted to put off writing it until I finished the novel I’m currently working on.  It seemed, however, that my muse wouldn’t wait; I set my novel aside and started a new one.

After several attempts, I finally had to admit that the new story wants to be a screenplay.  I never wanted to write screenplays because it’s a tough business.  Far easier, I thought, to write a good novel and have it optioned and made into a screenplay by someone else.  But again, my muse wouldn’t be denied.

This week, in a creative mania, I wrote a treatment and a screenplay.  I did nothing else, not even the grocery shopping, and wrote up to 18 hours a day.  Again, I felt better for a while.  Maybe, I thought, this was what I was meant to do all along.  Maybe if I just admitted I wanted to write screenplays, as cliched as that might be, I might finally get my life together–a new career, goals to set and meet, an income of my own rather than simply living off Hal’s life insurance.

The good feeling didn’t last.  Today I’ve been sitting at my desk, my screenplay in front of me, fantasizing about what it would be like to sell it and see it made into a movie.  Does James Lipton interview screenwriters?  What would I say if I won an Oscar?  The more I thought about these things, the more depressed I became.

How can I enjoy any good thing that might come my way if Hal isn’t here to experience it with me?  I fear that I’m destined to mourn my victories rather than celebrate them.  And if that’s so, what is the rest of my life going to be like, as I try to achieve something while at the same time dreading doing so?

Hal died 10 months ago today.  I’m so lonely and depressed that as I sit here writing this entry, I honestly can’t imagine how I can go on.