Dear Daniel

Dear Daniel,

On dreary, icy cold days like today and the tired creakiness is just so bone deep all you want to do is sleep. For me the reasons are many that I sleep on days like today. My mood disorder is linked to the weather at times. I’ve been extraordinarily happy these last few days. When an actor or actress you admire says they desire to play a part in your work you’re trying your damndest to the television screen it makes for a delightful day. They give you a name of someone they want you to send the treatment and pilot to makes for a joyous day. I had one of those days yesterday for BELLA MORTE. But if you want to read about it just follow the hyperlinked Bella Morte and see where (hopefully) I’m starting to get a buzz going for the work. Another actor, Jon Lindstrom, favorite a tweet of mine which said I thought he would make a perfect Kravitz. So huge strides. An agent discovering me? Not exactly. Still waiting to hear back from two others with the treatment and pilot.

No, what has me happy today is the fact I’ve lost 10 pounds! Down from 302 to 292! The steps, the fruit, the vegetables, the meals. All started around Halloween means in a month’s time I’ve lost 10lbs.! The holidays always prove to me to be the hardest so Thanksgiving, I know the British don’t celebrate this holiday and I wonder what my ancestors on my father’s mother’s side think of all of this really think of it. Full blood Apache my great grandmother was and my great grandmother on my mother’s father’s side was biracial. Part Cherokee, part African American. 

But boy do my modern day relatives cook up a feast on my mother’s side. How can I say this politely? A friend of mine, his family plans fell through, I won’t give names and I won’t give details because well, this blog is essentially about me and my trials and triumphs. I figured if I asked my mother if he and his wife and daughter could come she shocked me and said no because my Aunt Debbie’s kids were coming. This angered me to no end. I wanted to eat to it. So instead I said I would make dinner for him and his family at home. She immediately asked sarcastically who’s going to pay for it? I scoffed there was an extra turkey in the freezer that would feed four just fine. Missy was making me some of her grandmother’s cornbread dressing with chicken livers. And I could get green beans and a pumpkin pie and cool whip with my EBT card.

The long and short of it, I invited him, he had others volunteer faster and I’m making dinner for my friend whose daughter has an extreme form of autism that doesn’t really allow them to celebrate the holidays like everyone else. And by only making three things with one dessert and one cocktail (white zinfandel and sprite zero) I keep the caloric splurge to a minimum.

Besides, if truth be told big family events bother me and crank my anxiety levels up to sky high levels. And then what do I do? I do what my mother did after our conversation about Thanksgiving I’d grab a bag of chili cheese fritos and down the puppy to its crumbs.

I simply went to my room and wrote. I had a word count to get and I simply didn’t have time for her hypocritical bullshit. I understand my aunt almost died and it has freaked my mother out in a big way. It freaked me out. It gave me what many would say was a ‘coming to Jesus’ moment. Where my aunt was (open heart surgery, her kidneys shutting down, her coming thisclose to death) was where my habits were taking me. I didn’t want to be on that path anymore. I think of where I want to be and that’s what I’m going to do. I couldn’t continue eating late at night. Snacking and sneaking and grazing and pigging out to the point of sickness.

My mom’s not there yet. And I suspect she has her own mood disorder issues as both my sister Sara and I have bipolar disorder, and Brandy deals with depression. The only common like dna wise that we have is my mother. My mood disorder isn’t her ‘fault’ it isn’t anyone’s fault, but there’s a lot of anger in me. I feel it stir every time I write an emotional scene in a book or screenplay, or the teleplay I wrote for Nashville based on the book I’m writing.

I’ve stripped the excuses away. Yeah, I had a crazy, dysfunctional childhood, and mom and dad and Jerry are a good part of that. But the point is, and my mom likes to think she knows me (she doesn’t) and she thinks she knows my mood disorder (she doesn’t have the first clue) and she tries to command me not to face those issues, not feel them. But the reality is, if the weight is going to stay off I’m going to have to face those emotions that I’ve covered up. The pain, the anger, the anguish, the fear, the rage, it’s all to going to come to the surface eventually, I just pray for the strength not to eat to it.

Sincerely,

Amy McCorkle