4 hours and 3 minutes until I meet Susan (my co-author), my publicist, and her assistant at the studio. 4 hours and 33 minutes until the show starts. We're segment 5 and so I'm thinking by 11:30/11:45 the whole thing will be over. We've got an entire segment, 7 minutes of air time, which apparently is a lot but I know it's going to fly by so fast it'll be a blur. Most interviews we've done have lasted an hour or so and there's been so much left we hadn't gotten to. So, I'm working to enjoy the experience and savor it while I'm living it. Having said that, that's almost an impossible goal for an anxious person. I've been up on and off since 4, working through various breathing exercises, feeling my stomach cramp, trying to stretch out the stress knot in my shoulder has taken up residence again.
Yesterday a friend asked me what I'm nervous about. What am I afraid of. He said that I'm a dichotomy (although he didn't use that word), that on the one hand I seek this: the attention, interviews, notoriety, on the other hand I panic about it so much it seems as if I want the opposite. Did I really want the "fame" (and I truly mean that as a quote/unquote statement) or was I just saying so? It was a strange conversation to have at that moment. I would have thought some on-air coaching would have been more appropriate than a soul-searching therapy-worthy exploration but, there we were, taking a road trip through my emotional past.
We talked for a long time. I came up with lots of explanations, excuses. About how I never felt like what I did was important enough or serious enough. About how I feel survivor's guilt after lots of illness in my family and have learned not to draw attention to myself. About how I immerse myself in my projects but never share them with anyone. About how I've never had goals or expectations. About challening the driving will of anorexia to get things done.
I'm good at explanations.
I'm not so good at answers.
In fact, I suck at them. But, maybe there aren't answers. I can't see my path while I'm on it, I can only look back and appreciate how it's unfolded. I don't know what I want. I don't know what's next. I can't figure out why I'm always so torn, why I have trouble owning what I've accomplished and hide it deep for no one to see.
At the moment I feel like a character in a movie. A makeup artist is coming in an hour. I'm heading to a major (MAJOR) tv studio to meet Whoopi Goldberg and talk, live, on this massively well know show about my book. About menstruation people. And tomorrow we're being interviewed by a New York Times reporter for an article.
Things like this don't happen in real life.
They don't happen in my life.
Only they are.
(woohoo!!!!!!!!)
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