Monday, 15 June 2009

• Currently My Life as a Dog - Criterion Collection By Anton Glanzelius, Tomas von Brömssen, Anki Lidén, Melinda Kinnaman, Kicki Rundgren see related

  Goodbye, Sickan

  There are some movies you watch and then forget.  There are some movies that you love for a while and then outgrow.  There are a very few that you watch, rewatch, and then come back to years later and find it still has things to teach you.

  My Life as a Dog is one of those rare films.  I started this blog four years ago with a desire to use film as a way of processing and expressing the unarticulated feelings inside of me.  Thanks to some unexpected plot-twists in my own life, the pieces inside of me ended up spilling out in a much different way than I had intended.  In the end, though, it was all good.  I went on my own coming-of-age epic (albeit later in life than most of the protagonists in my favorite films) and ended up a happier, more self-sustaining person.

  My journey sometimes resembled Ingemar's journey.  Like him, I had a lot of unexpressed guilt and a sense of overwhelming responsibility about things that I could not possibly have controlled.  In the movie, his desire to get back his dog (now dead) symbolized his desire to return to the world of simple childhood where his sense of safety and self-worth was based on outside forces.  When these forces let him down (his dog died, his mother died) he blamed himself and tried to run away from himself -- ultimately choosing to act like a dog rather than face the world (MY life as a dog, therefore, is a double meaning: both that the poor boy is pushed around like a stray as well as his attempts to avoid the intracies of the adult human world).  In the end -- and this is something I did not understand about the movie when I began this blog -- he discovers that he is worthy of love, but that he must open himself to finding that love rather than expecting it to come to him.  The adult world is harsher than the world of children because we must seek out those who will care about us rather than waiting for them to seek us out.  It is also better because we are not slaves to the whims and destinies of other souls for our own happiness.  So Ingemar is able to open himself to a world of new friendships and lovers that he had held at arms length while he waited to get back to his forever lost old life.

  And its time for me to move on.  This blog has served me well as a place to exlore my new sense of self, but there comes a time to break off some ties.  Like Ingemar, I'm done waiting for my old life to somehow get back on track.  Its not going to happen, and I don't want it to.  Its not who I am anymore.  And, as much as I've loved this blog, the ties to the old world are too strong.  Half of the visitors here are people who never knew the old me.  But the other half are old real-life friends from long ago, friends who I've probably thrown for a loop by some of the things I've discovered about myself.  They are almost like ghosts: I see their footprints, they come to the site, read my latest confessions, and then leave without ever making a sound.  I used to wonder what they think of me, why did they keep reading if they didn't want to talk to me?  I would try to re-establish contact, but to no avail.  But now I know I need to just move on.  I can't live half in a ghost world of fading friendships, especially when I know that even now seeing those footprints on my page sometimes keeps me from being as honest as I want.  Most of the time, I am done with being judged by people who have never bothered to get inside my mind.  But in my weaker moments I still let their imagined condemnation of me get in the way of exploring who I am. 

  So I'm casting off the past, starting anew.  I'm probably throwing out some good with the bad, but sometimes its better to cut off too much than too little.  There is no one I don't want to talk to.  If anyone, new friend or old relation, wants to talk to me I'm happy to hear from you.  Its not about people not being worthy of me.  Its about me no longer sitting around wondering why old friends aren't speaking to me.  A child sits around and cries to be taken care of.  An adult goes out and finds the place where he belongs.  For me, right now, thats not here.

  I've deleted a handful of my old posts.  I didn't want to take them all down, but there were some I didn't want to leave up forever.  I used to offer my darkest secrets as an offering to the world, somehow believing that if I was open and vulnerable to the universe it would be kinder to me.  Now I know that my heart is precious thing, and what I share of its wealth is up to me.  So I've left up anything I've written that I've felt is helpful to others, but taken down what is just about me.

  I'll probably blog again if I find the right community.  It's in my blood now.  Write me a message if you want to know when and if I set up shop again.  That goes for my "old" friends too.  There's no one I am asctively seeking to cut off.  Its just time to start a new chapter -- one where seeking out people who actually like the new me replaces sitting around and wondering why so-and-so never talks to me anymore.

  Goodbye, Sickan.  You were a kid's best friend, a comfort in a confusing world.  I'd hold onto you forever if I could, but things pass quickly in this life.  I know you'd want me to keep moving, keep seeking out who I am.
  

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