Creating 2015—Day 29: Death & Movement

I was still mired in sadness around my old friend’s death all day today—intermittently weepy, foggy and funky.  Apparently, his body isn’t back from Las Vegas, which is why the service hasn’t been scheduled yet.  Best Friend From High School and I were emailing back and forth a lot today.  She’s a rock star.  She already ordered a flower arrangement from our class in our school colors.  Which reminds me, I need to get a check in the mail to help cover the expense.  She tells me she was doing good until she burst into tears with the flower lady.  She can’t stop thinking about the fact that Eddie left a wife and six kids and was a great dad.

Eddie & I about to graduate from high school

The biggest lament we both have is that we never had another class reunion after the one at the 10-year mark.   And now, one of our classmates is gone.  I am not fighting the weepiness anymore.   I let the tears fall at anything and everything they feel like falling to.   Like this morning, when we get an official rejection from my number one choice for a film festival to premiere the documentary at.  That stings.  But, instead of crying in our soup for too long, Un-mazing Romantic Partner and I rally.  We let that NO light a fire under our asses.

That NO motivates us to double down on the film we love and believe in with every fiber of our being and want to share with the world.  We use that NO as a springboard to give ourselves a big fat YES.  YES, we are determined to keep moving our film forward!  Calls are made, emails are sent, decisions are landed on, additional festivals are submitted to, agents and publicists are contacted.  Movement!  Hell yeah.

Until tomorrow, create from what you have…a death, a NO, and the determination to move forward.

Kelli Joan Bennett is a filmmaker, actress, writer, entrepreneur, advocate for creative thinking and Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Think Outside The Box Inside The Box Media.

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