First and foremost, hello again and welcome back. Sorry for my little hiatus these past few weeks. I was prepping and acting, working as a directing assistant for a trending film in Europe for an upcoming movie named Ombre Ma Fi. This opened me to a new venture just by allowing myself to experience this new blessing from this venture. I found a love for movie production. Which hearing that I would be featured in future projects but collaborating on a project with the director. Became something that I will in the future be actively a part of. However, I had a moment where pre-anxiety perceptions almost got the best of me, and I would have missed out on the whole scenario.
Of course, like all life milestone situations, there is a plot that develops. Which happened to be the family dynamics that were going on before my trip. Which in the past deflecting the fears of the potential worst-case scenarios. My family would have guilted me into staying behind in the past, which in their own growth within mine. Encouraged me to get on this venture to experience what this may bring. Which where I come from is an opportunity that never happens. Being around, so many amazing and intelligent artists made me realize why this was an extraordinary gesture. It also gave me a clearer understanding of why many become resentful of those who get out and make it, still keeping intact the love they have from their roots. If I didn’t get insight from someone who doesn’t have an inch of bias in them, I would have spent my whole life wondering why I can’t gain acceptance? From my own people.
If you follow my blogs, you will know that I have a reputation for taking accountability. Which to keep the spirit of that, before my life awakening. I will be the first to admit that I was a shitty person, which was the cause of the insecurities and the lack of self-love I possessed back then, even at my glory of days—always asking myself the same question. Why doesn’t it get better? Which back then, I was a very unappreciative little shit. I always like to think that it all happened for that reason. To finally possess the state of gratitude. When I wrote “Journey of an Unraveled Road,” it was the after-effect of finally having gratitude for even the most minor wins.
Throughout life, we seek the things that we feel we missed. For some, it’s the closeness to someone that we may have been taken by the neglect of those who knew better. In other scenarios, it’s about the opportunities we never gained or the richest in wealth and experiences that, for whatever reason, seemed like something we never could see. For many, it’s both, as we throughout life begin to condition ourselves to believe. A perception that we borrow from the world around us, causing us to feel that maybe hope doesn’t exist. Which in my venture in this crazy life. I was beginning to believe until I stopped settling for the world around me. I was hoping that my consistency and hard work would pay off eventually. Maybe in my fear, my insecurity, my lost hope, I truly believed that. But I was gaining self-love and challenging myself to those voices we all have. You know, the one that tells us we can’t be anything. I became enough motivation to begin challenging myself in proving that I was capable of doing more. Allowing me to be coachable and not let myself believe I knew it all began helping me get to the next level. Defying the gravity that I thought I never could grasp. But it left me with another worry to ponder. Why wasn’t it inspiring those who it was meant to inspire, not practical as I hope it would?
My director assisting gig opened so many opportunities and many experiences that seemed to close some of the many situations. For once in a long time, I felt like I belonged with many times just taking in the experiences and letting my over-analytical brain do its magic. This helped me develop an idea for two book series thanks to the new family I began to gain in this new venture. Which never would have occurred if I ended up taking the advice of my next favorite mistake. Who, after turning back around, is already arriving in New Orleans due to major mechanical issues. I would have never come up with the ideas, to begin with. Which I already had so many other excuses to turn back around. Those with my best interest at hand didn’t allow me to turn back around. But I began realizing halfway in the job that something that hasn’t happened to me in a long time was starting to occur. Taking back to my past in the insecurity and anxiety of being around new people, I began to feel something tiptoe into my subconscious. What if they don’t like you? What if you fail? And what if they turn their back on you as everyone else has in the past? Which the trigger of this all was that I wanted to do my best job regardless of my inexperience to ensure I had the opportunity to come back. Because I found the next thing I love, film. Which triggered one experience. When you love something this much, it seems like it’s taken away.
One of the self-sabotaging things I use to do post-trauma was hurt something before it hurts you. Which resonates as destroy something before it destroys you, which is a common and normal feeling when those are triggered in trauma. Having control of my own emotions was the reassurance I needed to show that I was relapsing in the recovery of emotional and physical traumas. As one thing I learned in my life awakening is that having self-control of how you handle a situation is something that deserves credit. This also shows that you come a long way in getting a handle on the presence of PTSD. Relapses happen, but it’s what you do after that shows the character you are. Because in the state of trauma, not many show up, and a few give it all they got in the presence of trauma when they show up.
Those with who I became close began to share their remarkable stories, their triumphs, their fears, and their sorrows, which matched the same feelings I had, which is why the bond was so strong—being able to help me through the sense of minor relapses in the insecurities that began to service, along with other things that my leading ladies will recall if they read this blog. But it also reinforced a theory that we all have heard time and time again. We all go through something, and we all fall. It’s about if you choose to stand back up, brush it off, lick your wounds, and begin treading on. This is one situation, which is something we all do in the industry, I feel. Is that we tend to be our worst critics. Which in the light of something that never should of happen, we all need to be reminded how amazing we are because of fighting our whole life, as I have. It can be extremely tiring. But the truth is another thing that was reinforced. It is those who not only reminds us and nurture us, show us just how remarkable we can be. Which is something I was fortunate to gain from the amazing actress and actor and new ally I gained in my future home, New York, New York.
Being transparent, I always thought that life would end in the sense of loneliness, which back then was something I feared, so I began to realize that I attempted to force relationships. Which during this life awakening, I embraced, allowing whatever may be. Be in the end. What I never realized in those dark days was that I would gain family across the country. One unexpected place was New Orleans, Louisiana, which through my publisher, was something that brought a tear to my eye. As “you’re finally home” is something that I waited to get to the room to cry. Because I’m not the emotional type. Which the things I was overthinking about that ended up not being a reality but a misguided perception in a moment in a new environment. I begin to realize that going with my gut and not allowing for these emotions to take over was all I needed to know that I was on a consistent and right path. I mean, that’s what happens when social anxiety brings when you have a history of being the black sheep and ugly duckling, which validated another idealism that I have. In life, you have to roll with the punches when you seize the opportunity by stepping out of your comfort zone. Because the truth is, you never know what you might be losing.
One of the many things I’ve heard through life was that “you can’t miss something you never had,” which made me think about the times that I was a cunty bitch and self-sabotaged other opportunities. Which I begin to smile when I think of it. Mainly because I would never have embarked on the newfound journey of film production, I was asked to collaborate with a writing project the rising star of a director asked to work on in the future. Along with other production gigs for the rest of the filming in this series. Which the insecurity was foolish even to have when I think about it. As the experiences I had in the past helped me take the initiative in many aspects of my little gig. Because the truth was, I was capable and always was in the past, regardless of what my insecurity said otherwise.
Knowing what it was and why it was important not to react took me a long time to master. Which of it was the old me? I would have royally fucked myself over. But the truth is this, we all have gone through something. We all have been irrational. We all have those doubts that play in our heads. Why take the risk of potential rejection when you can take the risk of rolling with the punches. You never know where it may take you next. And for this gal, they attempted to shame when they deemed me “Harvard from the Hood” has surpassed even her imagination. Where hitting rock bottom was just a lesson that not only gain my strength and resilience. But why I those I wanted to inspire just had resentment towards me. Which my Athena gave some clarification to this riddle. As those shortcomings that we all experience can be broken, which shows the inability to raise or even create a higher standard than mine. Which makes me love where I come from more. Not for the resentment, but because I refuse to let hope be lost. But it also gave me the name “Frieda the Fantastic.” And for that, I am blessed.
Frieda The Writer 