9:57 am - Tue 3/19/02
Life as performance art
(Just accidently deleted what I'd been doing in here for the last two hours or so. Just as well, really--It was pretty damned BORING--but still...)

Well, I MAYBE overreacted a bit to the whole Borders thing (The grim memo from Padric about cutbacks in hours and how things were "not going to be pretty" for at least the rest of this quarter).

John O. got back from his vacation on Friday. When I saw him on Sunday, and expressed my chagrin over the memo, he said he thought he'd be able to work things out to get my regular hours back, sooner rather than later (Someone's leaving, someone's changing positions--from "cashier" to "loss prevention", which is exempt from these cutbacks, at least for now--so some hours are going to be "freed up").

So my panicky feeling has subsided, but that still doesn't mean I'm thrilled with the organization I'm working for.

But truth to tell, getting overwrought about anything that goes on at Borders is just distracting. I'm not HERE to work at Borders, and I don't give a DAMN about Borders.

But I DO have to start giving a damn about ME.

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As I rode in to work yesterday. I was overwhelmed by a feeling of...well-being.

I don't know where it CAME from. I hadn't been drinking, I wasn't on drugs, and I hadn't just accepted Christ as my personal savior.

But it was another beautiful day in L.A., and as I rode down 4th, I passed a movie shoot, and it occured to me--I'm an ACTOR.

All I have to do, and I'm sure of this, is just marshall the energy, the WILL, to get myself out there, and I will make my mark. I just have to keep that at the forefront of my thinking.

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Something I think is very interesting, and it's not something that's usually been in the forefront of my thinking--I want people to like me, to befriend me, maybe even to LOVE me, but when they DO...I don't really GET it.

Carrie wrote something in her journal awhile back that has stuck with me.

She made reference to still being, at some basic level, the poor girl in clothes too small for her, captured in a photograph outside the trailer where she grew up. She's NOT that child anymore...but she IS.

It made me wonder who Jim Hoffmaster is, what's the legacy of my past that informs who I am now?

What is "Butch"-- that was my nickname as a kid--trying to SAY to me still?

"You could be laughing one moment,then stare a hole through someone with your eyes the next."

That was something Sallye Heffle said to me in a letter one time, describing the child she remembered (Sallye Heffle was a social worker back in West Virginia).

I think that's still a big aspect of my personality. I think I laugh pretty readily, but I also think I'm very quick to anger and upset. I see myself as burning pretty hot, though I don't know if the majority of people who know me would think of me that way at all.

The wanting to act was there all along, though I didn't know what it was, what to CALL it. I guess it wasn't always much fun to be ME as a child, so it stands to reason I pretended my way OUT of being me. Batman, Superman, Dracula, the Frankenstein monster. Fantasy figures, to help me escape being a powerless child in a world I couldn't control and didn't understand. Fantasies of power, but also a way to deal with feelings of being freakish, misunderstood.

Unloved.

Unloveable.

Ultimately...alone.

Reading biographies of anyone and everyone. From Florence Nightengale to Walt Disney to Ted Williams to Thomas Edison. People who DID things, who were famous, who OVERCAME.

People who MATTERED.

Never finding my way to feeling worthy. Never having someone say outright, never having anyone even SUGGEST, "You are loveable, and you are loved".

Being powerless. Invisible. Needing someone to SEE me, needing someone to CARE. Needing someone to say, "No matter what, I will always be there for you".

"No body likes me, everybody hates me..."

The truth was that nobody hated me. I didn't MATTER enough for anyone to hate me. But I translated being invisible into being UNACCEPTABLE.

"This is happening because I'm bad. No one loves me because I'm bad, and I'm ugly." It had to be about ME, because there was no other way for me to EXPLAIN it. If I was a good boy, people would love me, and I wouldn't get sent away (But I couldn't have told you what made me "bad". I just was bad, and it makes sense--If you feel like you're being punished, it HAS to mean you're a bad person, even if you don't know what you did WRONG).

But the child wasn't born into the world without anything to fight back with...

I was bright. I had imagination.

And in time, I had acting.

I was a very shy child (People who know me as an adult have a hard time believing that. They have a harder time still when I say I'm STILL basically shy at heart).

The first couple times I remember performing in front of other people--singing--it ended with me bursting into tears.

Not the most auspicious beginning to this illustrious career...

But obviously SOMETHING was there. Because in spite of the mortal terror, in spite of the tears, I went back.

People were watching. People NOTICED. I wasn't invisible anymore. And soon, it wasn't just being NOTICED; I got APPROVAL. ACCEPTANCE. People laughed, and clapped, and said "Amen" (My first real performing experiences were in church).

To me, this was LOVE.

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Lauren called me on something recently that no one has called me on in years--Being "on".

I'm not a real person. I'm continually "on stage", working for your love, your approval, your acceptance. And if I don't get it...I'm not really here.

Most people don't know when I'm "on", but they know when I'm NOT, because people will comment: "You seem really QUIET today, Jim...".

But that urge to entertain, to win the love and acceptance I don't DESERVE otherwise, feels like a pretty intrinsic part of who I am at this point.

It's simplistic--everything I've ever written in here IS--but it's there.

And I think one of the problems has been that, if I always need you to be looking at ME, when am I taking the time to look at YOU?

What if I take off the mask, and you don't like what you see? What if I get off-stage, what if I don't have a script, and you're bored?

I'm an actor. An entertainer. A performer. It's who I am, it's who I will ALWAYS be.

But it's not ALL I am, or all I WANT to be.

I don't want to always have to do a dance or sing a song in order to win your love. And I want to appreciate the skill of YOUR dance, the beauty of YOUR song, and be invited to see the person beyond the performer.

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