The End of a Film

I used to get so sad when movies ended, that I would need to absolutely cry and mope for a full afternoon. Sometimes, and I’m not kidding, it would take days. Not to be too on-the-nose, but a part of me was annihilated after the movie “Tuck Everlasting” but it also happened for movies like “The Sound of Music” to name only a couple.

Now it’s October and the days are getting shorter. 

Despite the approaching darkness, I am told to assemble anything depressive I have, let it go, and smile. Breathe with the giant lung of story. 

I have spent my life trying to find my way into belonging to a kind of family, which for one reason and another I felt like I only ever had in moments, for example, a film, yes; a family;  friends; even schools;  work; and cities. But it never felt like enough and in the end.. well I think in the end, the truth remains that these structures shift constantly. 

We are story beings, weaving and untangling tales as we go. When we belong we know our role in whatever saga we have told ourselves. But of course, it’s never quite that simple, because we will inevitably change perspective again and must let that identity go. I’m beginning to believe that structures, both social and physical, are like eggs. Functioning properly, they act as places of gestation until people move on. 

This is the issue with nuclear families and cults and nations, prisons, systemic racism, and indeed, capitalism, each manifestation attempts to make permanent the human story and identity. Here, also, lies our issues with death (I say like I know). But stay with me. Your body is yours and it's part of the world. But, ultimately, it, too, is also a nest.

Recently, someone I love realized he must move on from the work into which he has invested countless hours and thought. It is a breakup of sorts, between himself and this project.  I see him suffering, and find myself wanting a story for him, something that would help him make sense of his situation and ease the pain of leaving a group of people who he had worked with for so long. It might help to cauterize the wound of the separation that was so abruptly made. 

At the moment I continue to work virtually. I have spoken with echoes of people through the internet. Their words reach me late and I wonder to myself if I am late to them. I don’t despair at the miscommunication though because it is the internet, not, in fact, myself, that causes the rift. I wish I could give him a story to help him manage the echoes of the life that might have been, had this change not been initiated, whirling around his head. 

To change, to grow into and out of places, selves, communities, must be a right. A rite of passage, bolstered by the need and desire, let the process be aided with words. 

So if you need this, I give you permission to begin the change, make the steps however big or small they need to be. Make a decision right now, to step toward the change you are inevitably approaching, engaged in, or healing from. It may affect you for days to come, like the sound of a film reel whirring, but it is your birthright.