I am entirely incompetent at
adulthood. I realized this today when I walked into the kitchen and saw I had
left the oven on…. yesterday. I was going to let myself off the hook the first
time that happened two weeks ago, but dear God. I am a liability. I also
noticed that I drink a glass of red wine a night, and I feel frightfully like
my mother. And then adult Sara goes to her office. I have an office to go to.
This isn’t some slab of wood in a dorm with a desk lamp on it. It’s a freaking
office. With two monitors. And pens and stuff that I can veritably call “office”
supplies, and not “school” supplies. But the catch is I have to be an adult and
actually do work at it and not just waste time on Imgur.
Can you tell me how it felt when
you wanted to take your own life? I hear the words come out of my mouth but they
sound timid as hell and I want to tell myself to stop being such a baby about
these interviews. I’m trying to not to squint from a hanging white backdrop
that’s luminescent from the shining LED lights around the camera that’s in
front of me, filming the person sitting on a bar stool in our studio telling us
a tear-jerking story about their lifelong battle with depression. I’m putting
their story in my current project. Three weeks ago I was living in a tent in
the middle of Maryland wilderness training for boot camp and now I’m sitting in
a video studio in Seattle asking someone to tell me their deepest secret on
camera. I still get excited when my boss CC’s me on an email because I feel
somewhat important, and now I’m responsible for an entire video? Fake it ‘til I
freaking make it.
Now it’s 5:30pm and I’m still sitting
at my desk editing this project, a video for a suicide awareness and prevention
organization out here in Seattle. First of all, the fact that I’ve been given a
video to produce already is apparently a big deal. I’ve been told people are in
the industry for years before producing, if they ever do. It’s a man-eat-man
world out here, and personally I’m not a fan of walking all over people, so I’ll
just ride this wave of good fortune for as long as it lasts. Second of all, I’m
exhausted, and I’m working with a budget of several grand to make this video
happen. And it’s hot, and I feel completely unprepared. A new email flashes in
my inbox. It’s my client warning me not to make the video too depressing because
there will be suicidal individuals in the audience at the large fundraiser
where this video will be aired. Great. Now there are lives on the line too. I
spin around in my spinny office chair. Shmeh. I check Facebook, again, and
malevolently envy the people I work with who are already down the street at the
bar getting drinks. The bosses have left, and it’s just me uploading two hours
of footage from all the interviews I’ve conducted that day. Two hours of interviews
that I have to cut down to a gripping, dynamic, poignant two minute video that
depresses people enough to write a fat check but not enough to kill anybody.
All before my deadline on Wednesday. Adulthood.*
*I do need to mention, however, that I love what I do with a
ravishing passion, and this deadline will be met with vigor and not disdain. I
only think it’s worth mentioning that even my dream job can still be a job
sometimes.
*I also want to add that I take the issue of suicide very
seriously and I am actually very excited to be able to create a video that
brings awareness to the issue. I do, however, have to take into consideration
the fact that this is meant for a fundraiser, and I apologize if it sounds
insensitive to talk about my project in this manner.
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