No Longer Just a Little Person: Synecodoche, New York, Two Years Later

I started my online diary three years ago. I pretentiously resist the term "blog", because I was never looking for people to seek it out to read. It was always just for me, and was hugely therapeutic in getting through a divorce, and settling into post-married-single-father life.

During the lowest point of 2008 (the closest I personally have ever been to depression,though never settled into), I was hugely impacted by the Charlie Kaufman film Synecdoche, New York, which dealt with themes of post-divorce life, while also chronicling how one may feel miniscule and purposeless in a vast universe of misunderstanding and selfishness amidst the never-ending creep towards our own mortality.

In Kaufman's view, there is no such thing as solace or peace, and even if you are lucky enough to find your soulmate, you will be kept apart by your own obsessive need to lionize - or destroy - any semblance of self, preventing true, meaningful engagement with other people. Which leads to the inevitable question you grapple with day in, day out:

The Question: Are we all destined to be lonely forever?

When your spouse leaves and you're wondering whether or not you'll ever ever date again, much less find your soul mate, these were hugely impactful themes and ideas, and there wasn't much of a positive spin to put on any of it.

The impact of the movie was best captured in the painfully gorgeous, "Little Person", whose lyrics chronicle a protagonist caught in a sea of solitude, left only to "eat my little meals, miss my little kid and wife".

After posting how I felt like "just a little person", I was surprised to find that my secret-little-blog-I-wanted-no-one-to-know-about suddenly started garnering minor amounts of traffic from random places across the globe. With this being my most emotionally naked blog post, I was disquieted, to say the least. Was I revealing too much of myself?

But as an online marketer, I became fascinated, and suddenly started poring over geographic maps (the Ukraine, really?!) of where people who found the post were from, those who were equally drawn by Charlie Kaufman's painful but intensely human rumination on what it means to be human.

Being someone not intrinsically drawn to online self-exposure (and who now, ironically, must dive into it every day in my professional career), this was confusing. I didn't want to be sucked into that living-life-online vortex, but for a period it somehow made the lonely nights a little less lonely. Some messages shared with others led me to realize this film impacted lonely others out there - were we all in the same adrift boat, yearning for rescue? There's that question again: "are we all destined to be lonely forever"?

Fast forward two years later, to the question's answer:

No, we're not

Not long after wallowing in Synecdoche-magnified self-pity, I met the love of my life. The woman that I am matched with in every way. Our rhythms are perfectly suited for each other; with no disrespect to my ex-wife, we were just never on the same rhythm. We may have wanted ourselves to, but we simply were not meant to have been life partners. I think the post-marriage grieving period was more over the loss of an idea than anything else; this is probably true for both of us.

But I found another little person who wanted to come out and play.

And play we did, and play we continue to do. We endlessly have a ridiculous amount of fun, whether it's weekends away, hanging out with my son, long nights of wine drinking and laying on the floor listening to music, grabbing coffees and glances, or even (gasp) shopping together. There's absolutely nothing that we don't do together, and even less we don't do well together. She's truly been a blessing.

Certainly, the omniscient narrator/Millicent Weems would take a dim view of this turn of events, arguing that it's all a big nothing anyway, both in the beginning, the middle and the end of our time on earth. Talking quietly in his ear - and ours - she says:

"As the people who adore you stop adoring you; as they die; as they move on; as you shed them; as you shed your beauty; your youth; as the world forgets you; as you recognize your transience; as you begin to lose your characteristics one by one; as you learn there is no-one watching you, and there never was, you think only about driving - not coming from any place; not arriving any place. Just driving, counting off time."

I choose not to believe that.

That doesn't mean that I believe in an afterlife, or God, or anything else that suggests a higher consciousness than where we stand in the here and now. But I do believe there is meaning in this life, if you are lucky enough to find it, or choose to embrace it. I do think there is someone out there for most people. Sometimes you'll find them early, sometimes late; in some cases, not at all. I've been truly lucky to find mine, and hope for others to do the same.

Caden Cotard's journey through Synecdoche is one of futility, hypochondriac neuroses and pain, but it's marked by a genuine searching and yearning - the belief that there is something out there that may be found. Something or someone that makes it better. Makes it what you believed it could be. Caden whispers into the phone:

"I know how to do the play now. It will all take place over the course of one day. And that day will be the day before you died. That day was the happiest day of my life. Then I'll be able to live it forever. See you soon."

I believe I've found my way to live forever. For this time on earth, the time that it actually matters.

For so long it was those first few verses that rattled sweet and painfully in my brain, but all that resonates now are the final stanzas:

I know you
You're the one I've waited for.
Let's have some fun.

Life is precious every minute,
and more precious with you in it,
so let's have some fun

We'll take a road trip way out west. You're the one I like the best.
I'm glad I've found you,
Like being around you
You're the one I like the best.

Somewhere, maybe someday,
Maybe somewhere far away,
I'll meet a second little person
And we'll go out and play.

I am not just a little person, and never will I be. Hopefully none of us will be.

New Houses and New Beginnings

Feels like it's been a long time coming, but L and I have finally moved into a house together. We discovered the most perfect not-so-little three bedroom in Westchester, CA, a tiny residential community where kids ride their bikes all the time, and you have expect a neighbor to bring you a freshly baked apple pie. There aren't many communities in LA like that.

We instantly made the house our own, despite the fact that it's only previous resident was a 90 year old woman we've named "Dorothy", who owned the house since 1948. I presume that she raised her family there, and we are now renting the house through a management company. Everything is original and impeccably maintained, and amazingly solid. They really knew how to make things in the 1940s. We are putting our touches on it, from shelves on the walls to searching for a new dining room pendant lamp, but we instantly felt at home.

One of the most satisfying things was seeing how much Z loved it. He's an urban city dweller, and has spent his scant lifetime in condos and apartments. I hadn't yet had the opportunity to give him grass and green, and now I do. We went to Home Depot, bought a board and some nice climbing rope and built a homemade swing in the backyard. He helped sand the board and keep the rope straight while Dad was working. When it was all put together, the smile on his face was utterly captivating.

The smile on L's face when she comes in each day is equally captivating, and she's adored making use of our rather over-sized kitchen, which even fits her beloved leather couch. We had our second Thanksgiving together, and are making a home. A home that we hope to be in for a long, long time.

It's where we are meant to be.