the ceiling

My mind has been mulling lately over the concept of the figurative “ceiling”. Career-wise, I feel I may have seen all this town can offer me and what I can reasonably gain from it. I have slowly sloshed through several different spaces, putting my feet in shoes that barely fit, while looking for opportunities that allow me to do more than bide my time.

Whether it’s rationalization or truth, I think I have recently hit my head on the ceiling of this town. I mentioned this to a good friend and filmmaking colleague whose journey over the past two years has been nothing if not impressive and international to boot. So I wait to see what develops from the slow process of creating a business plan, followed by looking for financing, and then making my film should I have any energy or inspiration remaining in the vault. I don’t know what the other side will look like.

The way it’s seen, the ceiling is the visual metaphor for things when they have gone as far as they will. This is when we get too small for our proverbial box. I have thought of this a lot in terms of relationships, as they become less satisfying than they once were, or perhaps when they become plain weird. People drift apart. I suppose it’s how we react to this drifting that makes the difference? Is the answer in letting the connection take its natural course? Or is it important to put up a fight and likely create a more permanent rift?

What’s strange to me is how I have been feeling about someone I knew only vaguely, someone who I knew from parties and other gatherings, and who I first met randomly on my front porch. He was someone in the periphery of my life, part of one of the circle of friends, someone I might never have known any better, and now clearly someone I will never know more. I have just found out that he was tragically lost in a river boating accident. I am friends with several of his closest friends, so there’s a general energy around that is both disconcerting and revealing.

What can I take from this? Is it the lack of guarantees in life? Is it about standing up, opening up, spreading one’s wings, and breaking through those ceilings of life? Is this a reminder to find the adventure in life, one’s river to travail, one’s journey to take, and those passions that are approached with full gusto?

Probably.