Every time someone writes an article, a song or makes a movie, they show a part of themselves to the world. With each article I write or story I add to my web page, I'm showing a small part of my own life and my own heart to the world. While I recognize the difference between the person I show in paper and the person I am when I am social, it seems that this year I've forgotten to apply my own rule to other writers and artists.

This spring, we had friends visit from Australia. They stayed with a writer whose name I recognized but hadn't read too much of her stuff. When I did read it, I was impressed by her content and format, happy to see that such a disjointed, unconventional writing style could indeed be popular. It gave me hope that someday my own writing will achieve some of the recognition hers does, so I was looking forward to meeting her later in the weekend.

When I finally met her, she arrived as part of a large entourage and didn't give us the time of day. We went out to dinner as a big group, and she led her group to a table across the room from us. Maybe we didn't have enough chairs, but it certainly looked and felt like a snub. I had hoped to talk to her as a peer but there was no way I could get that close, she seemed so caught up in her semi-fame that there wasn't room to discuss her work, or anything. It was such a letdown. I'd come to expect that the person I'd met on the pages she wrote was the person I'd meet in real life. And they are not, not by a long shot. I should have kept in mind the energy it takes to pour little pieces of myself into my own writing, how sometimes I expose something I didn't mean to and afterwards I feel raw. I start making jokes, trying to cover the hole in my tough guy façade, lest the world should see. I forgot to consider that struggle as I faced my disappointment in not really meeting her.

This summer, we saw a movie about comic turned filmmaker's quest to find her birthmother. I felt instantly drawn to the topic since I'd taken a similar journey last year. While I wasn't totally enthralled with her film, I did find some of those connections I'm always on the lookout for. After the screening, the filmmaker held court outside in the tent and I went to see what she had to say. Once again, I forgot my own rule about the artist's voice vs. the person's voice and pushed my way through the crowd. I waited patiently in the trendy San Francisco crowd, feeling so very Midwestern and meek while the well-dressed and aggressive passed me by. After close to an hour, I thought my chance had come to get the 30 seconds of her time I'd been waiting for but evidently she didn't share my view and moved past me.

I knew that I shouldn't look to someone like her, someone sort of semi-famous for validation that my life was okay but the person I saw in the film seemed like someone I could really talk to. Of course, that wasn't the same person who brushed by me in the tent afterwards.

Afterwards, I was kicking myself for not pushing my way up to her, but more importantly for thinking that she had something to offer me outside of her film. Here she had spent a part of her life on an emotional journey, sacrificing her timeline to that of the film crew, showing her most vulnerable side, and I was selfish enough to want more. I had forgotten that the wisdom and vision she had to offer me and the other audience members had been poured into making her film. Any advice or reassurance that she had to give, she had already given to me through her art.

I'm doing my best to remember the struggle that others go through in creating their art. I know the urgency and love that make up a piece of writing, and I know all too well the exhaustion and elation that come afterwards. It's up to me to respect that effort and take what I can from their work, not from them.