Over, yet not over

[gwyn]

This past week has been a very bad one in a lot of respects, mostly because the escrow closed on my sister's house, which means that it is really gone now, and in someone else's hands. Her friend sent me the flyers they put out to market it, and aside from the most atrocious spelling I've ever seen and the egregious abuse of "fancy" typefaces that randomly changed from word to word, it was hard for me to see the pictures of it, and it being talked about as this entity separate from my sister. And some of her friends have been in touch, which always brings up the bad feelings. There have been tons of other small things, too, that make everything seem so hopelessly gone, so impossible, unbearable. I think most people assume I'm getting over it, whatever that means, but I feel like I'm actually sinking farther and farther down, the more people forget and expect me to be normal. The world is forgetting her, her friends will move on, but I don't get that luxury. Already everyone is mostly past it.

The neighbors all want to know about the new car, and then I have to explain about everything because it inevitably comes up. A friend recently said to me, as well, that I was so "lucky" to have enough money that I could just buy a car, such a cute, cool little car, and get my plumbing fixed and buy the new washer dryer unit that doesn't work at all. Yeah. Lucky. Lucky that I lost my job last year and that's why I got such a honking huge tax return that I could buy the washer -- because I had to fork out so much money in medical expenses that I could actually write them off on taxes, and they took so much withholding out of my unemployment check. Lucky that my sister died a horrid, brutally fast death and had her plans and dreams stolen from her at the best time of her life and now I have no twin left. Lucky that I had to sell her beloved car because it was too expensive and time-consuming to drive it up here, and I feel like I betrayed her. Lucky me. Honestly, I don't understand what gets into people sometimes. Of course I was lucky to have a sister who took care of me so well. But that doesn't mean I'm lucky to have the money. I'd give anything in the world not to have the money.

So depression always means lots of random driving around, and then when I'm home, vidding. I started the next Fast and the Furious vid, which I've put off for a long time. I made my first F&F vid, Stripped, last year about this time, because I was completely besotted with the movie and the fandom. I wanted to make this vid right after, but in the intervening year, more than half a dozen F&F vids have popped up and I didn't want to contribute to oversaturation. I've seen this happen with other movie fandoms, and when you get that kind of overkill for a two-hour movie -- especially if the vids are not always very well done, as I feel has been the case with a lot of the vids in this one -- you start to drive people who are not into it, but could be lured, away, rather than pulling them in. I'm still very hesitant to make this, for that reason. I really don't want to be the one driving a nail into the coffin, especially after the good fortune of luring a few people in with the first vid.

It's also harder this time because I don't have any of the effects I wanted to use in Final Cut Express, since the things I wanted to use were in iMovie plugins that I bought way back when. So I can't make it look like it does in my mind, and the only way I know how to do something similar would look too much like lierdumoa's vid The Chemicals Between Us, which is my favorite in the fandom (and just a damn great vid, period). What effects I am using, they aren't turning out right, either (how the freaking hell can you use a dip to color dissolve on letterboxed movie footage? Jesus H, these things are a freaking pain). I can't say that vidding, because of these frustrations, is fun. On the contrary, I don't think it's fun at all, and I give myself terrible headaches trying to figure out stuff that doesn't register in my brain in any way, shape, or form. But for some reason, the more depressed I am, the easier it is to focus on vidding. I don't know what that means, psychologically. Maybe it's just the kind of forced concentration on really pretty men or something... I have no idea. But hey, I have almost a minute already of my four-and-a-half minute vid! (I would like to offer it for beta as I go, but I'm not sure how well that would work, because of the kinds of expectations I have.)

I want to jettison the usual storylines for vids in this fandom, too. With Stripped, I wanted to pare down really tightly to the relationship between Dom and Brian. Their own little hermetically sealed world, in a way. This one I want to open up to the crime and the action and racing aspects, as well as their relationship, and shine a different light on it With such a long song, it should be easier to do, but then, I always think I know what I can do and find out different. If I was a flashier vidder, it would be easy, I think, but being Support Hose vidder, I fear my matronly, workmanlike style might not do it justice. But I won't know till I work on it. Also, I want to not go in a linear sort of story. Definitely not end with the ending, and move the timeline around. I'm tired of the regular timeline.

Now I have to go ponder whether I want to buy a FCE plugin for time effects and whether it will do what I want. And look at my pretty men.

Comments

[umbo.livejournal.com]

There's nothing that I can say that will make you feel better, although I wish I could. I do send hugs, though, and good wishes for the vid to go smoothly (or at least more smoothly).

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

Thank you, hon -- that means a lot to me, knowing how much trauma you've been going through lately. Maybe some night we can catch each other in chat; I'd like to hear what's happening beyond the LJ posts.

[maygra.livejournal.com]

My thoughts too, for strength and for the next day and the next. It's the only way I know to get through it. And also rather selfishly glad that TFaTF is still in your brain a bit.

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

Hey, I actually managed to get a few hundred words down on the next part of Ciudad, so the F&F is still a big love. Not a speedy love, but love all the same. ;-)

[kassrachel.livejournal.com]

I hear you -- it's been a difficult week here too. (Spent last week on vacation with a mentally-ill family member. You can probably imagine how well that went. Sigh.)

I'm sorry that the house thing is as painful for you as it is. I empathize.

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

How awful -- I hope not a violent illness. Not that any kind of mental illness is fun, but violence seems to make it ten times worse. And not exactly a vacation, either, I would imagine.

[maubast.livejournal.com]

I just wanted you to know I think about you and your sister every day.

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

Thank you -- and you know, I suddenly realized that I hope you know I include your F&F vid in the good category, but I'm deeply afraid that I never sent you any kind of fb at all, since I think it came out right around the time my sister really got sick. If I didn't, shame on me!

[maubast.livejournal.com]

Oh thank you - trust me, I totally understand. I'm just pleased you liked it. I have an idea for another vid (F&F, I mean), so maybe it'll get done, someday! :)

[ann1962]

{{hugs}}

[justacat.livejournal.com]

Sometimes I think it was better when mourning was a formalized thing - you were expected to be In Mourning for a certain period of time, and during that time you wore black and whatever, and no one expected you to be cheerful or to have moved on after a few months. Without some external symbol - e.g., the black - to remind you and force you to acknowledge, it's so tempting and easy to put painful things out of your mind, assume someone's "moved on" because it's too hard to think about the alternative ....

I'm glad that you talk about it here. And though I know it's scant comfort, my thoughts are with you.

(btw, did the W/D problem turn out not to be the shipping bolts? I was so hoping that would be it ...)

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

Hey, thanks.

Alas, non, the shipping bolts were apparently removed, though there were other things related to them that the manual mentions, without explaining to the lay person, and I don't know if they could be a problem (something about plastic spacers... don't ask me). The big issue now is that they leveled it, but they couldn't get it to stop spazzing electrically. So they couldn't test if it was fixed. It apparently freaked out, and started blinking madly, and it won't stop, even if you unplug it. So now I have to wait for an Asko - certified guy to come by on Thursday. I know it's just a retarded washer, but honestly, it sent me into such a tailspin. God, my coping skills are just... embarassingly lousy. But I'm glad you mentioned them, because at least I had a frame of reference to talk to them abou this.

[nwhepcat.livejournal.com]

People say the most dumbassed things.

I remember when my father died and a good while later I was talking to my boyfriend on the phone, and said I felt pretty good, and his response was "I'm glad you're all better now." I wanted to whack him with a hammer. But he was pretty committed to repressing all feeling.

::hug::

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

Oy, vey. Degrees of "better" seem to be beyond most people's comprehensions, don't they?

[thisisbone.livejournal.com]

I've been thinking about you a lot, gwyn. I know how it feels when people bring stuff up that you know they don't get, that you know it's going to hurt to talk about. Give yourself permission to NOT talk about any of those things with anyone you're not comfortable with. I remember after my mom died feeling like I had to talk about her in reference to my own life, why I felt so shitty all the time, and then I learned I didn't actually have to do that. They didn't know her, they weren't deliberately picking at a wound, but I still didn't owe them anything from my emotions. I could choose not to talk about it, and I started making that choice more and more. I had people I could talk to about her without it feeling like I was peeling my skin off, but I eventually learned how to protect myself from the unexpected emotional gouge.

It took time, though, and you are still in the early days. Be kind to yourself, and let others be kind to you.

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

It's weird, how much I thought that my past experience with loss would preprare me for this, or make me feel like I could handle it, like I knew the steps. But it's so different. I asked a friend, a fairly successful poet and one who is used to putting feelings into words, how she'd managed to get over her father's death, and she said something I never really forgot: I never have gotten over it, but eventually, you just stop talking about it all the time. She meant, of course, not talking in the sense of telling evreyone about it, but that you stop bringing it into everything, bundling it up with the other day to day stuff. I wonder all the time how long it'll be before I get there.

[minim_calibre]

I think of you and your sister often, but don't have the free hands enough to say, "Hey, how are you holding up right now? Do you need a distraction? I can attempt tap dancing." as often as I'd like.

How is the yard? Do you need any help on it?

I hope the pretty men provide some relief, of the short-term balm sort.

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

The pictures of Lily (hey, how cool, a song title!) are more than enough distraction, and I just love when you post them. Somethng about babies really helps you deal with loss, you know?

The yard is ... well, something else. It looks like a nice cottage garden right now, but when the flowers die back, oy, then the weeds are going to show for sure! So there may still be much in that area to do.

[mlyn.livejournal.com]

I hope I'm not one of the people who seem to be expecting you to be better now. I mean, I definitely haven't forgotten your sister or how you've been feeling; I think about sis_r and how you're doing often. If my emails are tactlessly light-hearted, it's just because I don't think trying to be depressing at you is going to do any good. I used to think I was good at helping people with their problems, but in the last few years I feel like I've completely forgotten how to help even a little bit.

I think you should not force yourself to deal with this alone. Is there a professional you can talk to?

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

Oh no, not at all. Don't worry about it.

[mlyn.livejournal.com]

Okay, I won't worry about me, but I still worry about you. *hug*

[glinda-w.livejournal.com]

I think most people assume I'm getting over it, whatever that means, but I feel like I'm actually sinking farther and farther down, the more people forget and expect me to be normal. The world is forgetting her, her friends will move on, but I don't get that luxury. Already everyone is mostly past it.

One thing I've learned about grief, is that it takes as long as it takes. No one else has any right to even *think* about deciding you should be 'over it' by now. It will, eventually, reach a... manageable? less achingly painful? stage, but there's absolutely utterly no hard-and-fast timetable for when that will happen. And if anyone says "should", I've got a lovely cast-iron skillet to use upside their head.

[cy-girl.livejournal.com]

People just don't know what to say so they say something dopey. I'm getting a divorce and when I say that I don't have kids, they say "oh that's so lucky that you don't!"

How do they know that maybe I wanted kids and he didn't or we struggled with infertility and it drove us apart? That's not what happened with us but, still, people want to look on the "bright side" and "cheer you up."

I'm sorry you lost your sister so untimely. ::hug::

[sweet-ali.livejournal.com]

A good friend of the family lost her daughter last year to a car accident. As of late, her sister-in-law has declared her too depressing to talk to and her mother-in-law wonders how she can't be over it yet. This mentality all has to do with *them* and not wanting to deal with the pain of this no longer. Well, too bad. Some of us don't have that kind of convenience.

I'm sorry this week was one of the harder ones, and that the selling of your sister's house just added to the pain of all of it and just know I'm thinking of you.