Birthdays. Aren’t they always a good time to reflect?
Around this time last year, I didn’t know what life had in store for me. I celebrated my birthday with some friends. A couple of weeks later, I met A. A few months later, A’s cancer recurred. Half a year later, A passed away. In a couple of hours as I’m writing this, it’s going to be my birthday again.
I feel like I’m back to where I started.
In scriptwriting, following some kind of story structure is necessary. Films are notoriously expensive to make. Every page of a script has an economic value. You cannot waste pages, because it means wasting the production budget. Scriptwriting needs to be as precise as possible while not discounting the emotional core of the story.
At an early point in the office, our producer introduced us to Dan Harmon’s story circle as a writing structure. Apparently, it’s the structure he used. It’s a full circle divided into eight slices; each slice represents the character’s journey at one point in the story. Concept-wise it’s quite similar to my favorite structure, which is the 8-sequence one. However, the form confused me.
It’s circular. The character starts at point 0, then goes 360 back to point 0. It’s counterintuitive to the simplest definition of a story, which is getting a character from point A to point B. In Harmon’s story circle, the character goes back to where they start. Where’s the evolution? Character development? New life?
I hated this structure.
For quite a while, writers at the office kept using the story circle in script developments. It always involved lengthy discussions about the character’s journey, and I believed the confusing circular form had a significant contribution to it. So I made an executive decision and asked everyone to stop using that form. Let’s use the ever-reliable 8-sequence structure instead and make a linear table out of it. We’ve had less unproductive discussions since then, and I’d like to think it’s because we’ve been using a different form.
I can’t remember how, when, or why it happened. Like a lot of epiphanies, they just happen on an ordinary day. I think I was looking at an intern’s story circle and thought about how ironic of us to go through all that journey just to arrive at where we start. Then I realized… isn’t that what life is?
And it finally clicked.
Huh.
In the fashion of Harmon’s story circle, I’m back to where I started. On my birthday, on my own. The setting is familiar. The characters are all faces I’ve seen before. But I’m not the same person.
Ever since my last birthday, I’ve been tossed and pressed around like dough. But I took my much-needed rest; so I can rise for the days ahead. And I’m… hopeful.
Who knows what’s going to happen in two weeks time?
The past year has been tough but I got through. And I’d love for you to get through the year ahead. So I’d like to share what I know when life throws you cancer.
Forgive yourself. Cancer is tough for both the patient and the caregiver. You will have arguments. There will be promises broken. Forgive yourself.
Know that all you can do is try. Nothing guarantees anything. Your responsibility is only to try.
Be present. Death is not going anywhere. It’s always in our future. But the living is now.
Memories are kept in the body. Sure, document a lot. Archive everything. But also, touch a lot. Kiss them. Trace your fingers down their skin. Smell their hair. Your body will remember.
Love freely and shamelessly. Nothing matters. We’re just a blip in the universe. Might as well love hard.
It was my 33rd birthday last year and a friend told me I was entering my Jesus year (he died at 33). They said 33 is usually the year life-changing events happened. I just didn’t expect my 33 would involve literal and figurative deaths. A died and I shed my old skin to move on.
It’s only been a year for fuck’s sake.
The thought of how much difference a year can make fills me with both hope and hopelessness. There’s really nothing we can do other than breathe, isn’t there? Maybe that’s all what life is. Breathe.
We are so small, yet we feel so much. Isn’t that kind of amazing?
This evening I’m back to where I started; and I wouldn’t change it for the world.
Happy birthday to me.