i am just starting to reconnect. and, it is a little awkward.

outside of the colossal bitch i have been at work...i have been hunkered down. depressed. hermit like.

i have been exceedingly sad.

so i threw myself into work. and, as i have whined before, taking on more for the greater good only makes you a greater target for criticism. oh well. if i had to do it all over again..i'd do almost exactly the same thing. i am not wired to look the other way.

it hasn't been easy and there are still things, every day, that i would gladly replace with blackboard scratching and water torture. again...oh well. i can leave if i don't like it.

and i don't like it. but i still have hope. and, in between the moments when i am struggling with the annoyingly mundane broken infrastructure crap...or the exceedingly patronizing bureaucratic crap...or the mounting number of times that i "take one for the team"...i sometimes manage to actually make things better.

productivity and efficiency are still so much less than they were when i left the building in 2002. when i returned last year, the only thing that was better than i left it was the studio. (it is exponentially better than the one i left.) the rest was decimated. but, things are getting better. much better. and at an encouraging pace.

and the people here are just amazing. i am working with the best creatives i have ever worked with. and, in spite of the broken IT or the unpaid bills, i still truly enjoy walking in here every day. i am building a production team that brings a smile to my face when i think of any of them...radically different, incredibly talented, lovely human beings.

and that brings me back to the creatives...aside from their incredible talent...they are all quite lovely....each and every one. the thing that makes me most proud, after all of these months of mind-numbing insanity, is when they come to me, spontaneously, in-turn, and tell me how much they love working here and how excited they are to have the opportunity to work with each other. (so, i haven't completely sucked since mummy died...because i built this.)

but i digress.

i was going to talk about emerging from all of this.

i was thrown into the deep end and i floundered and panicked and thrashed around and all i saw was blackness. and, most recently, i became still. and i realized that the blackness was actually blue..and there was a light above me.

and when i reached it, i found air and sky and all of the things that were left behind when i was thrown in.

and i saw very concerned friends and family...on solid ground...reaching their hands out to me to pull me to safety.

and i remembered a lovely dinner i had with john zissimos in late february or early march. (mummy loved him...she was still asking when she was going to be able to see "Philadelphia Flash" when she was hospitalized.) i hadn't spoken to him since that most uplifting evening. i never thanked him. i hadn't returned cat's calls or darcy's calls. i hadn't said anything about the most beautiful card that analisa sent..or called sally back...or found the strength to reply to the e-mail that patty sent months ago...because mummy loved her so. i was on the brink of emotional agoraphobia.

but i started reconnecting today.

i hope this is not just a "moment" of clarity...i hope this is the new "normal."

i deserve a new normal.