Well that was a surreal experience.

Surreal might not be the right word.

I’ve been having kind of frightening thoughts lately. Maybe that’s not the right word either.

Last night I attended the premiere of an independent film I spent one day working on. It was visually very interesting, sounded good, good effort all around. Well, except for the writing, and the acting. I mean, it wasn’t the worst thing I’ve ever seen, but I just struggled to care about any of the characters. But this post isn’t about the film.

It’s been a while since I’ve been around people I went to school with, people from my filmmaker life. I’d almost forgot what it was like to work in film…and what’s messing with me is I don’t really miss it. I don’t miss that world of call times and hurry up and wait and 16 hour days. Then I go to this screening, and there’s a visual reminder. I’m in a full theater, former teachers are there, my favorite and most talented classmates were there.

And then it hits me, this could be the last time I ever see them.

It was a very surreal experience. That’s all I’m saying.

I hung back to try to say goodbye, but then I fled as soon as I could.

But the real sad part now is that I might have ruined movies for me, because I know too much about how they’re made. So every time I watch TV, every time I go to the movies, I’ll see it. The life I let slip by. The life I wasn’t good enough to live.