Feeling Infinite and Meaning It

Last night, I went with a new college friend, Katie, to see The Perks of Being a Wallflower, a film we'd both patiently waited for for months. I read the book by Stephen Chbosky my sophomore year of high school, having heard the hype surrounding it for months. It's difficult to describe what the story is about, because it's inclusive of so many thoughts, emotions, and experiences that go hand-in-hand with young-adulthood. The book is young adult and hipster royalty, a sort of cult-classic similar, in a way, to the following around The Catcher in the Rye. But don't let its hipster praise put you off. It got there for a reason.

It's been roughly three years since I read the book, so I was looking forward to being surprised again in the movie, and reminded of what I'd forgotten. The film reminded me why the book has earned its crown among young adult literature enthusiasts, and teenagers in general. It also reminded me why stories, whether they be in the books we read or the movies we watch, can mean profoundly different things to us depending on the time in which we read or watch them. When I read Perks my sophomore year, I really enjoyed it. I thought it was intelligent and smart and different. I thought about it for a while, thought about the quotes I liked, and that was that. It seems strange to me, however, that experiencing the story of a freshman boy in high school now may have had a bigger impact on me currently than it did when I was closer in age with the narrator. 

What I realized, from seeing the whole story out on screen, is that Perks, while riddled with first love, alcohol, drugs, friends, sex, parties, you name it, is really a story about change. It's a coming of age story in the best sense. High school, for me personally, was easy. It wasn't such a huge change, and most of the time I felt comfortable. Now that I've been forced to move away and start dealing with life on my own, I have found that these next four years are my coming of age. And seeing this movie, and hearing the story for a second time ignited this weird feeling of okay-ness in me, and I think I finally understood the point of the book, at least for me, for the first time.

There is a line in the novel, probably the most popular line in the novel, which tends to get overused and run into the ground and made into more, sometimes, than it actually is. But it's overused because it's beautiful, for lack of a better descriptor. It's overused because we either relate or strive to relate. It resonates because we want it, we've had it, or we want it back.

"and in that moment, I swear we were infinite."

The final scene in the film is moving, more so than I thought was possible to capture on screen. The quote, despite the fact that it's become a bit of a cliche now, is powerful and I understood why. Not only is Perks a story about coming of age, it's a story of moving on and letting go when it is the hardest thing you can possibly imagine. And I get that now, at least a little bit. I've been there.

As I was wiping my tears of my face leaving the theater, I couldn't stop thinking about how amazing it is that we have the capacity to love. And I don't mean romantic love necessarily; that's a separate post entirely. The fact that we can just genuinely love people, and how that love can teach us to love ourselves, is amazing, is profound, is spectacular. I felt like the only thing I could do was tell the people I love how much I love them, and remind myself how much I love me. On the drive back, I was reminded that it doesn't matter what I've done, and where I've been and how much experience I have and how "cool" I seem, because I've loved and been loved and felt like I belonged somewhere and isn't that all that counts, in the end?

It was uplifting, and every other cheesy descriptor. I felt different and capable and fine.

Ah, fuck it. I felt goddamn infinite.

-Hannah