Spoilers ahead. Massive ones. You've been warned.
The English language fails to provide adequate vocabulary with which to describe the depth and breadth of my thoughts and emotions at the moment. I went to see La La Land expecting to see a good movie with good music and a modern on-screen couple that rivals classic on-screen couples such as Bergman and Tracy, Astaire and Rogers, Bogart and Bacall, and I got so. much. more. What I got was the single most accurate portrayal of life I have ever seen. The movie captured the highs, the lows, the fantasies, the romanticisms, the poetry, the indescribable ecstacy, and the gut-wrenching agony of that journey we call life.
Very few movies have made me cry. Even fewer have made me cry for reasons other than my in-depth knowledge of African American history. But this, this movie got me. Life rarely goes according to plan. Sometimes, that's a good thing, sometimes it's not. Sometimes, it's a horrible thing that leads to something good. Sometimes, it leads us away from one good thing to another good thing. Sometimes, that second good thing is better than the first one, and sometimes, it's not. Sometimes, it's just...another good thing.
In the last few minutes of the movie, we see Mia's (Emma Stone's character) life as it became after she rose to fame. She was clearly very happily married, with a small child. But she wasn't married to Sebastian (Ryan Gosling's character). They'd never had a big breakup, life just took them in different directions, and they both followed their dreams. Mia and her husband went out one night, and instead of fighting traffic to go to a play, they pulled off the interstate to have dinner instead. While walking back to their car, they heard music playing in a club, and decided to go in. They sat down, and Mia very quickly realized, this was Sebastian's nightclub. He had finally done it. He'd realized his dream, and it was a hit. While on the stage, he saw Mia, and his entire demeanor changed. He started playing one of their songs they used to sing together, as Mia watched, sadly. The music itself was brilliant, as we saw how Sebastian thought through how he could have done things differently. Differently in a way that would have put him and Mia together. How he could have been less selfish when they first met. How he could have dropped everything and gone with Mia to Paris when she got her big break, and played jazz in nightclubs wherever her acting took her. How they could have wound up married, with a child, and happened into that nightclub together that night, instead of her and her husband. And it was clear, Mia was thinking something along those lines as well. While she was extremely happy with her life, her husband, and her child, that didn't stop her from being sad for the life she didn't have with Sebastian.
A few years ago, I wouldn't have known what to do with that whole idea. I would have struggled with Mia's emotions, as though it were marital infidelity. But the reality is, life isn't that black and white. Sure, had she done anything to act on any of that, it would have been very, very wrong. But as it was, it was simply...real. Just because we're happy with how our lives are now, doesn't mean that some part of us doesn't mourn what could have been. We don't have to recite cliches like, "everything happens for a reason," or pretend that how things turned out is better than how things could have turned out. Maybe that's true, but also, very possibly, maybe it's not. Maybe another possible outcome could have been every bit as good as how things are. Different, but just as good. And recognizing that, and finding that it makes us sad on occasion is absolutely okay. In fact, I think perhaps it's even healthy. It's an acknowledgement of how life actually is. It's not necessarily a series of better or worse choices, of better or worse outcomes, of happier or sadder. It can be, and of course, at times it absolutely will be. But sometimes, it just...is. Sometimes, it's simply one choice over another equally valid choice with an equally good outcome.
Shortly before this end sequence, Mia auditioned for what became her breakout role, and the casting director asked her to simply tell a story. In true musical form, the story turned into a song. In this case, a song about Mia's actress aunt. Never in my life has a song so strongly resonated with me before. And that's coming from someone who is a musician above and beyond anything else. I am a musician before I'm a historian. Music speaks to me in a way that nothing else ever could. And this song spoke to me more than any other ever has. The refrain goes:
The English language fails to provide adequate vocabulary with which to describe the depth and breadth of my thoughts and emotions at the moment. I went to see La La Land expecting to see a good movie with good music and a modern on-screen couple that rivals classic on-screen couples such as Bergman and Tracy, Astaire and Rogers, Bogart and Bacall, and I got so. much. more. What I got was the single most accurate portrayal of life I have ever seen. The movie captured the highs, the lows, the fantasies, the romanticisms, the poetry, the indescribable ecstacy, and the gut-wrenching agony of that journey we call life.
Very few movies have made me cry. Even fewer have made me cry for reasons other than my in-depth knowledge of African American history. But this, this movie got me. Life rarely goes according to plan. Sometimes, that's a good thing, sometimes it's not. Sometimes, it's a horrible thing that leads to something good. Sometimes, it leads us away from one good thing to another good thing. Sometimes, that second good thing is better than the first one, and sometimes, it's not. Sometimes, it's just...another good thing.
In the last few minutes of the movie, we see Mia's (Emma Stone's character) life as it became after she rose to fame. She was clearly very happily married, with a small child. But she wasn't married to Sebastian (Ryan Gosling's character). They'd never had a big breakup, life just took them in different directions, and they both followed their dreams. Mia and her husband went out one night, and instead of fighting traffic to go to a play, they pulled off the interstate to have dinner instead. While walking back to their car, they heard music playing in a club, and decided to go in. They sat down, and Mia very quickly realized, this was Sebastian's nightclub. He had finally done it. He'd realized his dream, and it was a hit. While on the stage, he saw Mia, and his entire demeanor changed. He started playing one of their songs they used to sing together, as Mia watched, sadly. The music itself was brilliant, as we saw how Sebastian thought through how he could have done things differently. Differently in a way that would have put him and Mia together. How he could have been less selfish when they first met. How he could have dropped everything and gone with Mia to Paris when she got her big break, and played jazz in nightclubs wherever her acting took her. How they could have wound up married, with a child, and happened into that nightclub together that night, instead of her and her husband. And it was clear, Mia was thinking something along those lines as well. While she was extremely happy with her life, her husband, and her child, that didn't stop her from being sad for the life she didn't have with Sebastian.
A few years ago, I wouldn't have known what to do with that whole idea. I would have struggled with Mia's emotions, as though it were marital infidelity. But the reality is, life isn't that black and white. Sure, had she done anything to act on any of that, it would have been very, very wrong. But as it was, it was simply...real. Just because we're happy with how our lives are now, doesn't mean that some part of us doesn't mourn what could have been. We don't have to recite cliches like, "everything happens for a reason," or pretend that how things turned out is better than how things could have turned out. Maybe that's true, but also, very possibly, maybe it's not. Maybe another possible outcome could have been every bit as good as how things are. Different, but just as good. And recognizing that, and finding that it makes us sad on occasion is absolutely okay. In fact, I think perhaps it's even healthy. It's an acknowledgement of how life actually is. It's not necessarily a series of better or worse choices, of better or worse outcomes, of happier or sadder. It can be, and of course, at times it absolutely will be. But sometimes, it just...is. Sometimes, it's simply one choice over another equally valid choice with an equally good outcome.
Shortly before this end sequence, Mia auditioned for what became her breakout role, and the casting director asked her to simply tell a story. In true musical form, the story turned into a song. In this case, a song about Mia's actress aunt. Never in my life has a song so strongly resonated with me before. And that's coming from someone who is a musician above and beyond anything else. I am a musician before I'm a historian. Music speaks to me in a way that nothing else ever could. And this song spoke to me more than any other ever has. The refrain goes:
"Here's to the ones
who dream
Foolish, as it may seem;
Here's to the hearts
that ache,
Here's to the mess
we make."
As I listened to it, I thought about how heartbreakingly beautiful those lyrics are, and how true. I have often thought that the reason life is so hard is because we somehow have this notion that it shouldn't be. That families should love each other, that relationships should work out, that famines and bankruptcies and wars shouldn't happen. We have this picture of a better world in our heads. Maybe, as C.S. Lewis suggests, it's because we were made for Heaven. Maybe, it's just an evolved concept to keep humanity from completely devolving into monsters that blow us all to oblivion. Or, at least, to keep that from happening sooner than it otherwise could. Whatever the reason, much of the beauty in life comes from those who dream. The ones people told were, in fact, foolish for feeling so deeply and dreaming so big. I spent two years as a music major, and then wound up with a literature minor and a history major, all of which involved a lot of study of art. While many works of art, regardless of the medium, are enduring and meaningful from literally every era of artistic production, it seems to me as though the Romantic Era speaks more to us still, and on a deeper level, than any of the others. The Romantics were the dreamers. They were the fools wearing their hearts on their sleeves, demanding that life be better, daring to feel and daring to believe in something grand and wonderful. The Chopins and the Byrons and the Wordsworths. Like Mia's aunt in the movie, many of them died young, some because of a lack of medical technology at the time, and some due to the risky living that can often accompany those who dream. Of course, not all dreamers make such messes. But humanity does. Sometimes, we make our own messes. Sometimes, other people make them for us. But daring to dream deeply means that at some point, our hearts are going to feel that, and ache. The song continues:
"She told me:
A bit of madness is key,
To give us the color to see,
Who knows where it will lead us?
And that's why they need us.
So bring on the rebels,
The ripples from pebbles,
The painters, the poets, the plays,
And here's to the fools who dream,
Crazy as they may seem,
Here's to the hearts that break,
Here's to the mess we make."
There's so much truth in there. It does take a little insanity to allow us to dream. For us to dare to envision something else, for us to take those leaps, having no idea where those leaps will lead us. And yes, society needs the dreamers. It needs the visionaries. It needs those it often calls crazy. Because from where else would our inspiration come? It comes from the Van Goghs and the Debusseys and the Longfellows. Those who see the world in vivid colors, who hear haunting melodies, and who dare to hear the melodies of the Christmas bells in the midst of a war that pits brother against brother. It comes from the rebels. Those who dare to make something better. Those who rebel against convention or against abusive authorities, taking things into their own hands, gritting their teeth, leaping, and doing their best to make sure things turn out better as a result.
But what really resonated with me, more than any other part of that song, and more than anything else in the movie, was "Here's to the hearts that break; here's to the mess we make." Those lines, going through my head while Sebastian was envisioning how life could have been different for him, how he could have had Mia, were what made me cry. It's no secret that my heart has been broken many times. Truly, deeply broken. It has been broken by my siblings, by my parents who were supposed to protect me but instead badly abused me, by my hands falling apart and forcing me to move away from music as a career, and by someone I loved more than anyone else who said he would stand by me and love me and support me, and instead, tossed me aside, lied to our friends, gaslighted me, and more. I have had my heart so badly broken, I wound up in the hospital. Barely more than a year ago, I had no will to live. I have spent the bigger part of my life wishing I had never been born. I'm not in a place yet where I can decisively say I'd choose to be born, if I was given the choice. I don't know.
But here's what I do know:
I look around me, and where I am isn't bad. In fact, where I am is pretty damn good. I have a good job, I can support myself, I am in an amazing relationship, I live in what is basically my dream apartment, I live in exactly the city and state I want to live in, and in general, life is good right now. It's also still pretty raw from the last half of 2015. I think it'll take me a while before I don't have such emotional reactions to everything (and I'm not just talking the end of the relationship...everything). But I do know I'm a much stronger person than I was before. I'm even more Dauntless, even more a warrior. And, in some ways, even more a rebel. I'm less afraid to be who I am, rather than who society tells me I'm supposed to be. I'm less afraid to openly acknowledge the things some say I should hide: my Autism, my PTSD, my chronic depression, my life as a cult survivor, etc. And yet, with that increased strength, my ability to dream has not been damaged. I still dream. I still dream of a life with someone I love. I still dream of having a career as a therapist specializing in PTSD and cult recovery. I still dream of reaching out and touching peoples' lives. That's my whole reason for this blog. And I know that in the last couple months, I have managed to reach quite literally hundreds of people with my blog posts, and impact them positively. The reason I have this blog, is because of some giant human-made messes, and a shattered heart, mended, and shattered again. In fact, the reason I'm living where I am, in the relationship I'm in, and have the current dreams that I have, is because of all of that. The more I'm broken, and the more messes in which I'm entangled, the bigger my dreams become. In reality, the more my dreams are shattered, the bigger they get.
At the end of the day, my life would be wildly different today, had my first major dream been shattered when I was three years old, and had the same series of broken hearts and shattered dreams and man-made messes not followed. Would my life be better? Maybe. Or, maybe, as in the movie, it would just be different. And I think recognizing and even somewhat mourning the path not taken is part of how we can fully appreciate how things actually are, and the significance of choices and events in our lives.
So yes, I think I will always say, "Here's to the hearts that break, here's to the mess we make."
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