I can envision it now: quirky girl in a cute sundress and wide frame glasses is down on her luck and feels hopeless about her life thus far. She's in her twenties, very cute, very polished despite despite the fact that she can't seem to hold down a job and makes quips about her shitty English degree from an expensive private college. There's probably a scene where she plows through a pint or two of Ben & Jerry's (look at that haphazard side-braid! She must have whipped it up out of nowhere! Probably didn't even look in a mirror! - all lies. She looks totally cute on her vintage couch in her mismatched apartment shoving spoonful after spoonful of Phish Food into her little red mouth).
She can't find love, and by the second pint it's a pity-party of her wondering why none of the boys like her and if her personal style is just too much and if the necklace she made out of paperclips by hand is off-putting or some other horribly trope-y combination of quirky-cool. We are supposed to watch her and try to relate, and there is a window of hope here because she makes that side-braid look so easy and maybe if all of us could just master one side-braid life wouldn't suck so much.
But this girl's life is a two hour romantic comedy and we don't even get to see the three hours of prep time before shooting it took to piece together the side-braid. Somehow we find ourselves relating - we're young, right? We don't have jobs or love or any idea how to move forward! Neither does she! But there are only twenty minutes left in the movie, and the barista in her favorite coffee shop (a key sideplot of her life's film) is looking like a pretty good match. You can't beat their witty banter while he makes her latte everyday, and everyone knows it.
There are plenty of moments where the girl in the film cries on her floral couch and sobs in her shower and looks completely hopeless. Maybe, for a few brief moments, we believe her because we've been there. The difference here is that we get to see her figure out her life in two hours, probably from our own floral couch, as we put ice cream into our mouths, and wind up shutting off the TV feeling still dejected. There is a massive difference between the glorified, Hollywood sadness that the media latches onto. It's funny because we are all twenty and no one is happy! None of us are dating! None of us have stable jobs! None of us are passionate! But it's not always funny. In fact, it rarely is.
Sometimes I feel like it isn't exactly my place to talk about this, seeing as I'm only eighteen and everyone likes to tell me that I have my whole life ahead of me and that I shouldn't worry so much about the future. Thanks, adults of the world, but I'm going to spend 95% of my time worrying about my future and there is honestly nothing you can do about it. I'm sorry, because I really wish there was, for both our benefits. In the times when I have felt to confused and lonely, there have been no times for side-braids and ice cream and no time for rationalizing my age and my situation. There is only crippling sadness, fear, and self-doubt and there is nothing quirky or simple of glamorous about it. It's horrible. Everyone feels it, and I know it's real when that simple notion that everyone else feels it does absolutely nothing.
Sometimes you're on the floor of the kitchen shout-singing the saddest song you know and it's not funny. There is no camera crew. You're on the floor shout-singing and one day you'll remember it and think it was funny and maybe you'll write about it or tell a friend - but right now, it sucks and it is the moment and you are sad and that is your life. You're up at 2 AM convincing yourself you have a terminal illness. You're in love with your best friend. You're lonely. You're afraid no one will ever love you in the ways you want them to. You burn everything you cook. You just got fired. You just got hired. But you're dispassionate. Your dog died. You're out of ice cream. Because you ate all of it. An hour ago.
You're on the floor. Everyone has been there but it doesn't matter because this is your floor in your home and the linoleum is sticking to the exposed skin on your back. You're singing and crying and sticking and stinging. You believe with every part of you that there is absolutely no hope. You're not the girl in the movie. The bright side? No one sees the black makeup staining your face because you're not the girl in the movie.
Cry on your floor because it is your floor and no one has to know except you.
-Hannah
No comments:
Post a Comment