Tough love

The girlfriend called me this morning from her sister's new house in West Florida. She had accidentally called the office line and once I picked up I was already in trouble. She was under the very normal expectation that I was supposed to be north of Orlando working on my Everglades project today. And I was. But...

My girlfriend is wonderful and wonderfully tough all at the same time, in connection to my work and my personal projects. She keeps the fire under my ass and doesn't let me convince myself out of old ideas, regardless of whether or not they have much potential to yield anything valuable. And I need that and love that she cares enough for push me, even if she annoys the hell out of me occasionally. She believes deeply in showing up and seeing for yourself. I respect and love her for this. But sometimes it so mirrors the grief that I give myself, all of the frustrations I have with my own motivations and energy towards getting out the door and making things happen, that its just too much to take. When you are already very tough on yourself, sometimes that extra chorus of "I don't want to hear excuses" does not help things at all, even if it comes from love.

That wasn't the case this morning -- I'm not working on the Everglades today because it became basically impossible. The PR person didn't get back to me after 4-5 calls this week (she is actually having a family emergency I learned, so you can't really say anything about that... I hope everything is OK) to give me even a general idea of where I was to go or who I was supposed to meet up with. Then my flight back in from Nashville got in late last night, well after 10:30 p.m., and I was faced with almost 4 hours of driving in 6.5 hours before the proposed shoot. I was already tired; it wasn't even a remotely good idea. The Everglades isn't going anywhere, and it would have been foolish and dangerous to try and drive up half-asleep. I'm sure, however, that if I hadn't immediately crashed asleep once I drove home from the airport, I would have chastised myself about it in bed.

But even given my very valid explanations, and in light of our cancelled trip to North Carolina, my girlfriend was on my ass this morning... God love her for it. I already have a plan to make up for it, however: I'm going to work on another project tomorrow night right in my own backyard. And going to buy her flowers. Pretty ones.

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