Saturday, March 04, 2006

Elizabethtown

Got home early last night as I was feeling really crappy. Stuff doesn't seem to be working and my brain refuse to cooperate with me. Went shopping for groceries and came home, stretched out on the couch with a box of baked chicken from Meijer and settled in front of the tv watching Elizabethtown.



One thing from the movie caught my attention - one that makes me think about myself and it actually turned out to be motivating.

"I've been the substitute person my whole life"

That is a line by Claire (Kirsten Dunst) while she was out walking with Drew (Orlando Bloom). They were total strangers - she the air-stewardess in the plane he took to Elizabethtown from Oregon. But when he checked into a hotel that night he arrived, he called his sis, ex-gal and none of them were available so he called her. Isn't that such a down time for anyone? When you want to talk to someone, no one seems to be available and you had to end up calling a stranger. I'm glad I always had mum to call whenever I can't find anyone else. Sometimes I wonder to myself, do I really have that few friends to call when I need to talk or just chat? Honestly, yeah..there's only a few that I feel comfortable spilling out my guts to. In fact, it became a whole lot fewer when BK left because he was the friend, the brother, the lover, the mentor...he was my everything. So why did I let one person took all these role? Fear? You never want to call a stranger...so you turn to the same person who is willing to take it all in. But I still have mum. :)

What in the world does that one tagline has got to do with me? When I heard it, I kinda refuse to believe there is such thing. I still believe that people do belong. That there is such thing as true love between a guy and a girl that has nothing to do with the true love between a dad and a daughter or a brother and a sister. Is that naive? BK thinks I'm still naive because of that. But what if you came so close to it? To know that there really is such thing as true love, there is such thing is feeling home when you embrace one person, there is such thing as the feeling of 'belonging', that you know you don't have to keep searching anymore because you're home.

Then as the movie goes on, I realize that what she said can be true for anyone. Why? We have to search before we find home. It's during this search that sometimes we feel that we're just a substitute person. We are close enough to the real thing but not enough to be the real thing. Think I'm crapping? I don't think so. And I think it's okay to be the substitute person. We just helped the other person to realized what is missing and why it wasn't good enough. I was just the substitute person until he found out what he wanted, what he was missing.

There can still be true love and the sense of belonging. But we just had to go through cycles of being a substitute or being with a substitute until we find our match. Thinking this way, I think that it's really okay to be a substitute person. Especially one who is not very easy to remember and yet is impossible to forget. I think that's what makes a person a really good substitute - because then you can be there for that person. You've made a mark right there and when that person can't find anyone else, you'll just be there because he remembers. But at other times, you're just occupying the unlit space in his mind, maybe even his heart.

It all made me feel better...because I know it's okay to be a substitute person.

He remembered February 22nd. We are no longer the closest to each other. We are like strangers. But he remembers...is it selfish to our future other halfs if I think that I had been a really good substitute? That being so faraway in distance and emotions..I am still remembered. Maybe..but at this point, I don't care.

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