You're the Monster, Dr. Frankenstein.

I’m tired.  My health is declining because I won’t accept that turning 50 this year means my body needs more attention.  More vitamins.  More rest.  More care.  Sure, I am concerned about aging and what it means psychologically to be turning 50 and the anxiety that is unfortunately always present about what society wants me to believe is my “worth” as a woman...

But more importantly, a fact I must face is that my body is battling physical, not just psychological problems like hypothyroidism, anemia, estrogen loss. All quite common for women approaching 50. Nothing to be upset or too concerned about according to doctors. "You just need to take care of yourself and slow down a bit".

I did nothing to incur these problems mind you, other than being born with ovaries but regardless I am not sure I should continue on this path, toiling in the relentless grueling hustle that is “this business”.  A phrase usually said with disgust through gritted teeth by those of us consumed by it.  The business of  filmmaking. The HUSTLE of always hunting for the next job. The unsteady paycheck. It's exhausting. 

Filmmaking is storytelling come to life. 

Do you know what it takes to make a story come to life? 

Everything.

To give a story life, you will need 20 people for the smallest stories, hundreds for the biggest ones.  You will need money to feed this fever dream which you will have to raise, earn, beg for. You will need  to cart your dream around in your pocket proclaiming its worth to everyone who will listen so you can gather your team of 20 or hundreds and get them as excited as you are about the dream.  For if they are not excited, they will not give you their best no matter how much you pay them and their best is what you need because you’re creating life.  That means, no sleep, no food, no anything else until living breathing images with the perfect color, sound  and distribution to the masses is achieved.  And with luck, you will one day finally be able to say, I’ve done it. The dream is alive and it’s wonderful. 

But, more often than not,  you will fail.  

It will be miserable. It will be cold. It will be wrong, stubborn, stupid, impossible. You will ask yourself why on Earth you ever thought this stupid monster you've been trying to give life to, carrying it around in your pocket was ever worth dreaming of in the first place.  You will give up.  

Your dream will die. You will die with it. The monster will not get to take its first breath.

It will collapse into the bottom of your pocket and remain a frayed thread that was once going to be the first stitch of something great. None of it will have been "worth it".

And then, you will inevitably watch someone else’s monster breathe. And inevitably, something will change in you...

THE FURY! THE EXCITEMENT! 

You realize: they did what you were not able to do BUT they did it wrong.  It came too easy so they didn’t care, now their monster’s lazy. Or, they were pressured to go too fast and now their monster’s incomplete, breathing but missing its soul, no its leg, no… it’s missing something BUT MY GOD THEY DID IT! AND IF THEY COULD DO IT?

Then, that dream you once had, that dream on paper, that thread in your pocket... it wriggles to be taken out. 

But you’re tired. You’re so tired. It was easy for the others who made their dream come alive. Why is it so hard for you?!  You are broken.  You are hungry.  It won’t be worth it.  It won’t work out. 

But then you remember…

The one time, when it did work out… and you were a part of making the monster come alive… you with 20 or 100 others… working together,  breathing life into a monster.

My God you remember... it was magic. 

And oh... uh-oh... then you realize... it was never about the monster really... or what it would do once it had its breath...

It was about the magic of creating it.

Magic is what it takes to make a story come to life. 

And so I ask myself... and you... Dr. Frankenstein... in this coming year, a year that is sure to be a pile of awful, unimaginable shit…when you are undoubtedly going to be too tired. You’re going to be too old.  You’re going to be too unhealthy.... I ask you... do you need that magic like a mad scientist longing to create for the sake of the madness of creation?

Or are you sane? You, who has always believed in monsters...