I Can't Lie On My Bed Without Thinking I Was Wrong, But When This Feeling Calls This World Becomes Another, Nighttime Won't Hold Me In Your Arms Again

--"Too Young", Phoenix

I was watching Lost in Translation again tonight. Tonight would be about the sixteenth time I've seen the film since it first premiered in 2003 and I have to say it still holds up as one of my more favorite films ever. If it isn't in my top five, then it's definitely in my top eight.

I honestly believe it all has to do with the first few scenes of the movie where both Bob and Charlotte are experiencing those jags of restlessness that seemingly has been plaguing their trips up until that point. It's not boredom, per se, that comes across in these scenes, but an almost sense of ennui at the state they find themselves in. It's this oppressive lack of interest in anything around them that has always intrigued me about the story because without it the characters would seem rather snobbishness. I mean--who wants to see a story about two obviously entitled individuals going around Tokyo, discussing how unsatisfied they are with life and the universe? That would not be entertaining in the least to me. But those scenes, those subdued scenes of almost silent yet frantic desperation draw me into the story in a manner that having these characters bitch and moan about their plight in life would not. I don't too much about being a rich movie star or a affluent college graduate vacationing with her music photographer husband while staying in a ritzy hotel.

But physically struggling with what to do next with my life while being cooped up in a hotel room? That's something that I seem to go through every time I go on vacation.

It doesn't matter if I'm out of town by myself or with someone, I always end up in the same place that Bob and Charlotte do. I find myself at the end of a, by all appearances, productive day unable to sleep, unable to relax, and most of all unable to stop thinking about where I am at in this stage in my life. And I think I know why that is. At home I have enough activities to fill up my day. I have my routine. I go to work. I go hang out with my friends. I do what I normally do, day after day. But when I'm on vacation, all of a sudden I don't have the routine to hide behind. While the daylight hours might be filled with new experiences and going out with people to places that none of us have ever been before, eating the food we have never eaten before, and altogether experiencing facets of life we have never faced before, at night the same dark thoughts of being adrift in the sea of life come creeping back in. The only difference is I have no excuses to shield myself from it. I don't have the luxury of saying I need to get up early the next day and I don't have the excuses of it being something I need to worry about later on.

There always comes a night in the middle of my vacation where I can be found sitting in a chair in our hotel room, contemplating the complexities of my situation. I begin mulling over the sequence of events that lead me down the path to where I am at that moment. I start wondering what more I could be doing. I start mulling over what kinds of choices it's already too late to rectify. And I feel bad because it's usually when somebody is still sleeping in the bed, blissfully unaware that there is anything wrong. To them it's a vacation, but to me when those kinds of nights come, it feels like anything but an escape from those issues that keep me up at night. What it feels like is the moment when those kinds of concerns have finally caught up to me.


can you hear me calling?

I guess that's why I like the film, because it doesn't shy away from the fact that everyone--everyone--has moments of doubt that keep them from feeling fully functional. And I guess I like it because it doesn't offer up the easy answers to how best get past these spiritual or emotional blocks. If anything, it offers up the idea that most people we come across, like it or not, do not fully comprehend the struggles we may be dealing with at any one given moment in our lives. There are going to be the husbands and wives that are too busy with their lives to offer us assistance at times. There are going to be friends like Charlotte's friend who may hear the words we are saying, but not be really listening to the cries for help behind them. There are going to be thousands and thousands of people we come across everyday who haven't the slightest clue how wounded we may be when we meet them.

And yet there are going to be those exceptions, those select few who comprehend the struggles we can't put into words. And it doesn't even matter if they can offer up a cure. That's not really the point. A solution sometimes really is just the icing on the cake. What we need most sometimes is just someone to listen to the problem and to finally understand it. It's like the film puts forth, when you're in a land of people who don't quite understand you and you don't quite understand, sometimes it's just the hope that there's one person out there in the miserable world who does which gets you through your day.

It's like when I'm sitting in my chair in our hotel room all I can think about is how much I wish someone were awake to ask me if something's wrong. That's it. I can't even tell you how many times I've been in that kind of scene where I feel my angst isn't important enough to wake up somebody to vent. Yet, by the same token, I've worked myself up even more, wishing that that other person would just get up and check on me.

I don't know--I guess it's that idea that I'm always too scared to speak up about what I want and where I want to go that keeps me up into the wee hours of the night. And I guess it's the fear that even when I do work up the courage to tell somebody about it, they're not going to appreciate the gravity of the situation. Or worse, it's the fear that even if I do tell someone, they're going to minimize my fears or even mock me for them.

And those are the times I wish someone, anyone, would just wake up and hear me out.

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers