it's just a TV show

            I hate it when my husband tells me “It’s just a story” or “it’s just a movie” or “it’s just a show, it isn’t real” or he asks me “Why do you care so much? It’s not real?”

            I can’t help it. It makes me flame. I’ve lost count of the number of times his off-handed aforementioned comments have left me more pissed off than I should have been (I’ll admit that much), stomping my way down the hall and into my office, where I once again take solace in my books, my music, my movies, my computer.

            Such is life for way too overly imaginative, creatively minded me.

            Oh yeah, did I forget to mention the fact that I’m a writer?

            Oh shit. Probably should have mentioned that earlier.

            I tried to explain it to him tonight.

            That as a writer, over 95% of what whirls around like a maelstrom in my brain every minute of every hour of every day (when it isn’t song lyrics), is those characters that “aren’t real” to most people. And plot lines, random name and story ideas, movies I loved, books I loved, random things that inspire me along the way.

            I’m a writer. If not for things that “didn’t exist”, my brain would be almost entirely silent almost all of every day.

            But it isn’t, as those of you out there who are fellow writers, fellow movie buffs, fellow fanboys and fangirls and music buffs—fellow imaginative and creatively-minded people will attest.

            Life is what you make it. And what the hell kind of life can we ever hope to live without passion in it, without love—love of life, love of loved ones, love of what we do, love of the things we find joy in—the things that we’re passionate about, the things that drive and inspire and move us—to do, to partake in, to create for ourselves?

            I’m a writer, and a lifelong self-admitting bibliophile. I’ve been in love with the written, spoken, and sung word for my entire life. Since I was four, I can’t remember a time I wasn’t madly in love with a book—with the worlds that lie in wait between the covers, in the movies, on the TV screen, and more often than I’m comfortable admitting, in my head, in the worlds that exist there, and the characters that live and breathe within each and every one of them.

            I have been writing stories, poetry, and songs of my own since I was 8 years old, which means that I have of my own free will, sat down to homework of my own assigning each and every night (most nights for 8-12 hours at a sitting without blinking), spinning out tales and creating characters and dialogue and situations and creating worlds that “aren’t real.”

            When it comes to the work of others—books, poetry, songs, movies, TV shows—I’ve always paid more attention than most of the people I know in my day to day life.

            I don’t know why.

            Is it because I’m a bibliophile? Is it because I’m a writer? Because I understand how much work and thought and effort and time they pour into their work, as I always have?

Maybe it’s just because I’m overly imaginative, or my empathetic nature?

            I’ve always had this uncanny way of being able to feel the feelings of others very deeply, the same as I’ve always felt things in general very deeply—when I love, when I hate, when I despair, when I rage, when I yearn, or desire, or despise, or loathe, I do so with every single fiber of my being. Down into the depths of my deepest heart and soul.

            I always felt that it was my empathetic and strongly passionate and feeling nature that helped me dive into my work as hard and deeply as I do—that it added to the realism and the depth of my work—that it made it easier for me to convey the feelings of what I was trying to put across to possible readers, and what my characters felt.

            After all, what good is a story, if you can’t move others to feel? If you can’t touch them through your work? If you can’t share stories with them that haunt them, or inspire them, hurt them, or heal them?

            What good is a story, a movie, a book, a song, a poem, a painting, a portrait, a work of art at ALL, if it doesn’t affect those who see/hear/feel/taste/touch it?

            This is why it pisses me off when he tells me it’s “Just a show”… it’s “Just characters, they’re not real.”

            No shit, Sherlock. (no offense to Sherlock in any of his incarnations, be they movie, book, TV show (hell yes I’m a fan. Bring it on BBC. And hell no, I still haven’t forgiven you for the end of Merlin. That one seriously hurt.)

            I know they’re figments of someone’s imagination.

            But you know what? Those figments are put forth into the world meant to inspire…

…to teach.

…to touch

…to move.

…to hurt.

To heal.

To convey human emotion, in all its sometimes painful, generally messy, sometimes ugly, sometimes beautiful, passionate, and sometimes horrendous glory.   

It was created by emotion-feeling people, for emotion-feeling people.

It was one person’s way of opening their heart and soul, laying it bare before our feet and saying “Here, come crawl into my brain and give me a moment of your time, and I share with you the endless galaxies that exist within my innermost heart and soul.”

            But don’t ask my husband.

            After all.

            “It’s only a TV show.”

avsongbird vlog #25- really had to get this off my chest

"This bugs the hell out of me, so I'm getting it off my chest. Please bear with me"- rant/drabble read and discussed on my youtube channel

This bugs the hell out of me, so I'm getting it off my chest. Please bear with me.

             Who the hell was it who woke up one day and decided that when someone gets married, they cannot look at or talk to members of the opposite sex outside of their family members without everyone else chipping in their two cents and labeling them a cheater or a whore or a player or automatically assuming that they're "playing the field"? I'm a married woman, and I love my husband. There's honestly nothing in this world I wouldn't do or give for him. And when we exchanged our vows back in 2009, I meant every word.

             I've never cheated on my husband. I've never even been tempted. Is our married life perfect? No. We're human, we're not perfect, and it's ludicrous to believe anyone could be. Every relationship you'll ever be in, romantic or otherwise in your life, is going to have its ups and downs, and that's part of what makes it worth it. You remember the highs to get you through the lows. You look back at the rough patches and remember having each other to get you through it. To show you the silver lining through the clouds.

               What the hell kind of a life do you have without people you love to share it with? People you can laugh and cry and be yourself with and not have to worry about pretending to be anything but who and what you are with?

               I've never had my own massive entourage of friends, in fact I've always been pretty introverted by nature, but I was never without a handful of really close, really incredible friends. Friends who could call me at three in the morning and cry if they needed, or come over and eat ice cream and tell me about their problems. I once had a friend actually call me at 3 in the morning and we spent the remainder of the night driving around in her car so she could tell me about her problems and I could help her out in any way I could.

               Another time a friend of mine called me up, having relationship problems, so we swung by a drive thru, picked up dinner, and drove out and sat by the freeway and ate and watched the cars pass us by till the sun went down, and we talked him through it.

               Yeah, I said him.

               And yeah, some of my closest friends have been guys throughout the course of my life. My best friend from the beginning of seventh grade all the way through high school was a guy.  To this day he knows if there was ever anything he needed, he could pick up the phone and I'd be there.

               Why should I stop being there for people just because I fell in love and got married? So some of my friends are still guys? So I enjoy their company. So what? Yes, my husband knows about it, yes my husband knows my friends personally. No, that doesn't mean I've ever cheated on my husband or considered it or that I'm looking to cheat down the road, and to be honest, the only man who should be concerned about it is my husband. I don't understand people, where they find out that I like talking to people, meeting new people, and they feel they suddenly need to hop up on that soapbox and read me the riot act about how I should shut myself in and cease to talk to everyone of the opposite sex because *gasp* I'm the reason they send me dirty messages, and I should go offline so that they're not tempted to send them to me.

               That their behavior and their way of treating women is my fault.

               And no, I'm not trolling dating sites, I'm not all over hookup sites. That would be one thing. I'm talking social sites here people. Facebook, or myspace style sites. Risque, I know. I should be ashamed of myself, apparently.

               But you know what? Even if I caved, and I did go offline and become a hermit, some other woman would be the one they sent such messages to. And it wouldn't be her fault either. It shouldn't be about whether we're married, whether we're not. That's between us and our spouses. It should be about respecting the person. (And yes, I'm talking about respect for the guys too!) If you don't agree with what they're doing, that's fine; you're more than entitled to your opinion. Move on. What's the point in reading them the riot act? What do you really accomplish other than making yourself sound like an ass in front of everyone else who reads what you have to say, and getting backed up by other likeminded, close minded, judgmental people? Why all the negativity?  Life is already too damned short as it is!

               I've always been an open-minded person. I've always loved meeting new people from all walks of life and hearing them talk about themselves at length-- their different backgrounds, their different religions, their passions, their hopes, their dreams. I love nothing more than watching them light up when they talk about something they love, something they're passionate about.

               I love people on a person by person basis. I've been that way all my life. I don't understand why I should have to give that up now, and honestly, I have no intentions of it. I shouldn't have to change who I am to become this little cookie cutter image of what people think I should be. I'm a good person, I'm a caring, honest, passionate, friendly and loyal sort of person with a good heart. And I have no intentions on ever changing that.

                Thank you so much for letting me vent about it, whoever's still reading my rant, if anyone. I know I should just continue to ignore and to block the negative people, as I've always done, but I guess I just don't understand why people treat other people with so little respect. It's always bugged the ever-living hell out of me.