Dear Debbie,
I know I haven’t seen you in over a year, since we terminated our therapy at Carson. Robin Williams’ death prompted me to write to you.
I never told you that more than twenty-five years ago, my college playwrighting and creative writing professors gave me stellar feedback regarding my nascent talent for the craft. I remember my singular, life-altering internal response to their belief in whatever talent I possessed.
I can make you cry and laugh, or feel transported, but really, most of the time, I want to die. I’m barely holding on. I have a choice. I can pursue career success head on. I can have a good few years and join the rest of the women of talent who are best remembered for their self destruction. Or I can remake my internal life, seek help, as much as it
takes, as long as it takes, to reset the stones of my foundation, and let the art follow as it may.
I wanted to live the life I could create on paper.
Not everyone has to choose one or the other to focus on. There are those who are more skilled at life and more gifted–whose skills and gifts feed one another graciously. Not me. I just had to figure out how to get through the day without collapse.
Every time an artist of gargantuan talent self-destructs, there is a part of me that says to the rest of us who bear witness–didn’t you feel it? Didn’t you feel the desperate press right there below the surface–calling to us–? I know
some of us feel it because we are still climbing or have just climbed out of a personal hell. We know that just because you see beauty and whimsy, just because you create it, doesn’t mean you know how to live it.
The gorgeous talent will always take care of itself—the rest is what we need each other for. We need one another for
help with the messy, dark and terrifying underbelly. Thank you for helping me learn how to live a peaceful life, so that I can add my talents to the world.
Your grateful former client,
BA
By JAC Patrissi
