It All Began with a Movie...

I went to see We Bought a Zoo tonight, which was surprisingly well-done and moving for all of its cheesiness and clichés. There was a quote that I absolutely love, made by Matt Damon’s character, Benjamin Mee:

“You know, sometimes all you need is twenty seconds of insane courage. Just literally twenty seconds of just embarrassing bravery. And I promise you, something great will come of it.”

This philosophy helped Benjamin muster up the courage to introduce himself to his wife. I hope to live that way, to be able to get over myself and my insecurities to be bold and take action when the occasion calls for it. I also hope to find love like Benjamin did.

He mourns his wife’s death so beautifully and in such a moving manner. Sometimes I rather morbidly fantasize about how my loved ones would respond to my death. I know it sounds absurd, but imagine the opposite of Gatsby’s funeral, and it does somehow become soothing. I think of all the people who have touched my life, all the people who mean or have meant something to me, and it always serves to make me feel better. In the similar way that a teacher can almost always find at least one positive thing to say about his/her students, I think of the collisions I have had with beautiful, wonderful people: my rather romantic soul thinks that they could probably think something generous of me. That my life had purpose in that people would mourn my loss, because that would mean that I had touched them, however fleetingly.

And my romantic nature does not end there. I watched this movie, observed Benjamin’s sorrow, and thought of the ways in which his mourning proved his love. I asked myself, will I ever develop the kind of intimacy with a person, with my hypothetical husband, that it will feel as though my loss is the cutting off of an essential part of him? Will this man, somewhere out there, avoid the junk food aisle because the sea salt and vinegar potato chips will make him think of me? Will he smell his old sweatshirts that I appropriated, looking for a semblance of me? Will he regularly scroll through photos of me, of us, to bring memories of our life together back to life?

It’s silly right? and perhaps a tad too personal, to be sharing this with you. My wacky thoughts and fantasies. The ways in which I have carried a movie’s story to my life and questioned how my future husband would miss me if I died. But there was just something about this story, an embedded romantic comedy in a family-friendly-tragedy, that made the romcom-fantasy-version-of-love more believable.

Sometimes the smallest things spark our interest; sometimes a beautiful story is too beautiful to remain outside of one’s own personal experiences and dreams. So I claim that story. And fantasize about my potential marital bliss who knows how many years down the road.