full circle

day 23 of 29 days over. 6 more working days to go.

when i go home something else awaits. a new shift. a first. something i have not officially done before.

it's been a wrinkled past four years, somehow. age does that to you. working does that to you. douses down the fire of your dreams. breaks you, rebuilds you, and turns you into a different person, somehow.

new and fortified. more guarded, a lot less trusting, but definitely wiser to the ways of the world than that young idealist from film school could ever be.

* * *

or at least that's what i thought yesterday.

maybe we all just come full circle.

* * *

with every adventure that i go through i carry something new with me, something to incorporate into my personhood. and last night, something that our cinematographer said had just sealed my faith in a recent realization.

"you want to become a director? just make your own film. some people who want to direct spend years and years working for people who make their own films, and in the end there is just a lot of frustration."

he's right.

my same sentiments four years ago, before i had joined the business.

and since i began, frustration has not been an alien feeling to me.

oho, SO not.

but everything has its pluses and minuses.

* * *

those words, coming from a french dude who was already working in the movies long before i was even born, were the centerpiece of a defining moment in this saigon journey.

the path has been riddled with questions. finally, i'm getting some answers.