Homeweird Bound and The Real World

I suddenly feel weird blogging about my chapters. I don’t know why, nothing has changed or anything. I just feel like I don’t know what to say. That’s been happening a lot lately. I just don’t know what to say about anything. 

Maybe I’m just not good at this. I mean engaging socially on the internet. It feels so pointless. My mind is blank. I want to connect and find community, and technically there is no barrier to entry, and yet I feel blocked by an invisible force. 

Anyway. On to Act II. 

In Homeweird Bound, Cara and Griffin are now on their flight home from the L.A. trip that definitely took a turn from its intended purpose. Now Cara’s all up inside her head, reeling from everything that happened, decisions she made, things she promised – namely, agreeing to record music with River. 

She’s having serious doubts about it. And let’s be honest, if Griffin hadn’t been there to coax her into saying yes, she would have said no. Maybe not to River’s face, but she would have shut the idea down in her mind so quickly that River would have gotten the message indirectly, by watching her run, not walk, away from him and his dazzling offer. 

It’s so uncomfortable for her to even think about, that she trances out into a daydream about the plane crashing. If the plane crashes, it’s her way out. She doesn’t have to worry about what happens next. But, perhaps surprisingly, perhaps not, Styles becomes a co-lead in the plane crash scenario. 

It seems he made an impression on her, in a way that she’d rather think about getting lost in a survival scenario with him, than deal with the reality of her situation. Maybe she just thinks he’s attractive, and the sexual fantasy she had about him at River’s unlocked a secret crush on him.  

Or, maybe she feels like there is some kind of unfinished business between them. He did get her talking about her unfinished projects the previous evening, and that definitely stirred up something inside her, even if she doesn’t yet know what that is. 

Once they get back to The Real World, Cara’s doubts continue and she wrestles with following through on her agreement with River vs. the idea of just sinking back into her comfort zone, which becomes even more enticing when her favorite client offers her a long-term contract to write user guides for a luxury sex toy series. 

(Which begs the question, how luxurious is too luxurious for an object you stick up your *&^%$#@!? A case can be made for both sides of that argument). 

So now she has a conflicting choice to make: safe and comfortable, vs. risky and new. I can see someone asking the question, “why can’t she do both?” and that is a good neurotypical question to ask. For Cara, I think that idea is too overwhelming. She’s already easily distracted, for one thing, which makes it difficult for her to concentrate on finishing tasks. (Maybe I should have Griffin ask her this question, or have her talk about it with Paige. That might be an edit I need to make.) 

But I think she also cares, a lot, about doing a good job. Some perfectionistic tendencies. She knows how to do her tech writing job well. When her instructions become manuals for physical products, it’s validating. The singing/recording opportunity with River offers the potential for another kind of validation, but it’s untested. On top of that, it means answering a question that she isn’t sure she wants answered, and almost certainly the death of a cherished childhood fantasy, regardless of whether she fails or succeeds. 

For her to make the music thing with River work, I think she feels that she needs to focus on it entirely, and that splitting her time between that and her regular day job is a recipe for failing at both and disappointing everyone (a theme that carries onward, not to get too spoilery). 

Ironically, this cues up an avoidant coping tendency, what I like to call Decision Making Disorder, which threatens to lead to the exact failure she’s afraid of. 

Which sends her back into the plane crash survival scenario with Styles. Now these daydreams about him are no longer isolated whimsical fragments. It’s become an escape to a continuing story. More than that, it’s a fixation, teetering at the edge of limerence, where dopamine lives, and feels exponentially better than having to face reality. 

This is the point where her daydreaming habit starts to tip over into maladaptive, where, like any addiction, it can have a negative impact on her life, and the lives of those around her.   

Drama? Yes. But make it funny. 

(Turns out I had quite a lot to say about these chapters once I started typing...)