"This is just like something in a movie!"

Do you ever feel like your life is a low-budget, highly artistic, fascinatingly unpredictable indie film?

I do.

It felt like that one morning last week, when I was awake before the sun and wouldn't get to go to bed until long after the sun retired. Stupid, lazy sun.

I remember sitting there thinking, "What is this, who put me here in this life, and why do I feel like I have a camera watching me and Ben Folds is playing the keyboard for the soundtrack as I tie my shoes?"

Do you ever feel like that, like your life isn't something that you asked for? It's just something you were thrown into? Because a character in an indie film doesn't ask for it either. The writer never checked with her to see if she was okay with being gently but pointedly mocked, her facial expressions becoming more and more animated as her emotions develop and expand as the story develops and expands.

One of my favorite scenes in the film is the one where I'm sitting at the counter in the coffee shop and I'm holding a latté with perfect foam, and I'm looking out at the sunshine-drenched and people-filled street, and I'm hearing my favorite song, and you can tell I'm a regular because all the baristas and even some of the other customers know my name. And I have the look on my face that says "Yes, I am here, and this is the right place for me to be, and I know it."

Life feels like an indie film when I'm in my kitchen. I'm standing there barefoot, wondering about life and where it's taking me, and I'm wondering what kind of love story, job story, college story, life story, that I'll get to tell my kids. In the film, the editor would cut to a shot of the happy ending of the story I'm imagining - in that scene, I'm not baking for my dad, but for my kids. Or better yet, my kids are baking for their dad, and I get to tell the story of how we met. I get to tell them about my college experience, about the amazing life I was given. Then the director would have the scene go back to me, the barefoot one, wondering in the kitchen.

Some moments feel too perfect to not be part of a script. They're not always the moments with the plot twist, or a radical change in the tone of the narrative, but they're beautiful because they explain more about the character.

It's when the two close friends show up wearing the same sweater and find out that their parents have the same wedding anniversary. It's when she runs into an old friend. It's when they play basketball and he doesn't let her win because he knows she hates that. It's when the perfect shoes are purchased. When he finally cries, when she offers a hug because she can tell that everything isn't fine. When she walks into a door because good Lord, he is distracting. The moment the letter is written, when eye contact is made, when a song starts, when the letter is received.

And maybe life actually is a film, because really, what is a film other than a story that people watch? Maybe the only difference is that real life doesn't end with credits rolling on a black screen.  


(Maybe it's just because I finally got my spot in the library back, or because I'm paying too much attention in Film or English class, or because my hair is up ballerina-style, but this is what I needed to write today. Sorry that it's a little disjointed and emotional and maybe a tad pretentious.)