Happy Birthday Poppa Jo!
He says he gave me a typewriter when I was two years old. I actually have memories of that odd yellow machine. So as he likes to believe, he is the absolute and true reason I am a writer. Who knows if it was actually that typewriter that I connected with but every moment I sit in front of my computer, like this moment now, I know that I am a writer because of my father.
Both of my parents completely supported my strange habit of checking out a pile of books from the library and spending my Saturday trying to see how many I could read. They supported me when suddenly I found journalism tiresome and wanted to get into the exciting and yet unstable screenwriting profession. But, it was my father, who told me, after I graduated from college that I could move home and not have a standard job. My job would be to sit home and write. Spoiled, is what some people might say to this, but now seven years later I realize that he presented me with the most precious gift anyone could give an artist; complete creative freedom.
At that time, I was too scared to know what I was presented with. Stay home? Live with my parents? Psst! I’m 21! I’m grown, independent! So I got a job and moved out and years later I’m struggling with how to build my creative work and pay the damn phone bill at the same time. But as much as I complain and cry, I know I am blessed with the support many of my friends don’t have. I look at my other friends who are also chasing their unconventional dreams. I hear them complain about their parents not understanding why they are college graduates who serve people dinner or jump from one minimum wage job to another wishing and praying for that break that will take them out of the constant battle with anxiety and self esteem. I feel their pain when they wonder how the hell rent is going to get paid this month. I still deal with doubt, financial instability, and wonder when or if it’s ever going to be me who I read about in the trades. But because my father understands why I am a 27-year-old hostess/babysitter/reader/garagesaleextraordinaire/copywriter/receptionist/assistant and more importantly how all of these things equal being a screenwriter. All I have is the stress and anxiety that I put on myself. The love and support that I constantly get from my father is the one thing that pushes me to strive. It is he who tells me it’s okay if my new spec doesn’t sell. He is the man that champions my small triumphs that seem invisible to others, and it is he who challenges my drive when I complain about the struggle.
One day while cleaning out the garage I found something that explained my whole life to me. I found a screenplay written over 20 years ago by my father. And then it clicked; he is giving me the dream that he was unable to pursue. I never asked him about it. I didn’t have to.
My parents met in college and married at the age of 23. As a married man he didn’t have the luxury of making minimum wage or not working for a month to finish a screenplay. He couldn’t lock himself in a room and not leave until that script was done. He worked, he supported a family, and now he’s giving me the ability to dream. I don’t know if my father actually wanted to be a screenwriter, I have no idea if he feels that he never got to live out his dream. All I know is that what I am is because of his love, his support, and more importantly he constant reminder that I can be whatever I choose to be.
Whenever I face doubt and curse myself for falling in love with something so intangible I think of him. I think about how he has more faith in me then I have in myself. Oddly enough, his blind faith often translates into fear and I find myself fighting against that big “What If”. What if I don’t become successful? What if I let him down? But that won’t happen, it can’t happen. He has equipped me with the tools to strive and to see myself in whatever light I choose to surround me. Because of him I am able to dream.
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