I am a serial re-watcher and re-reader.  When I find a story that moves me, I enjoy revisiting it.  I like knowing what will happen to the characters and I like being able to anticipate my emotional response.  Like choosing music that enhances a mood, or selecting familiar scents, narratives often help me access my inner emotions.

Last night I watched the movie Boys on the Side.  I don’t think I’ve seen it since high school, and I have no idea what compelled me to choose it, but I watched it, and I cried.  I cried and I cried. 

I don’t know if my psyche just needed a good sob fest, but I have found myself frequently overcome of late.  It sounds melodramatic to say this, but I think I’m struggling with the enormity of the human condition. 

I cried when Mary-Louise Parker’s character talked about the future she wanted with a husband, two kids, and a convertible den – a future she could never have.  I cried when she talked about being lonely and feeling like there’s a space between her and everyone else.  I cried for the love, and the loss, and the desperation, and the hope of redemption.

A similar thing happened when I rewatched Fleabag a few years ago.

The first time I watched the series, the scene in the confessional touched me so deeply and so unexpectedly that I flat out UGLY cried.  But season 2 came out mere months after my sixth loss, and it didn’t take much provocation to send me into emotional tailspins.  However, I was surprised when – years later – I had anticipatory tears streaming down my cheeks well before that pivotal moment. 

For non-viewers, Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s monologue in the confessional scene ends with:

“I just think I want someone to tell me how to live my life, Father, because so far I think I’ve been getting it wrong, and I know that’s why people want people like you in their lives, because you just tell them how to do it. You just tell them what to do and what they’ll get out at the end of it, and even though I don’t believe your bullshit, and I know that scientifically nothing I do makes any difference in the end anyway, I’m still scared. Why am I still scared?”

It’s a desperate desire to control what we cannot – a yearning for someone or something to make sense of the senselessness of life. I think that must be what touched me.  Because when we really, truly recognize our absolute powerlessness and consider the screaming void of chaos it is terrifying.  And that is why many people turn to God.  Because you’ve got to give it up to something.  You’ve got to believe in something to find meaning or hope in anything. 

The first two steps in Alcoholics Anonymous are (1) admitting you have no power over alcohol and (2) believing that a power greater than the self can restore sanity.  Perhaps that’s why I’m struggling. I haven’t surrendered my control over my life.  I still cling too tightly to good moments, still believe that that any misstep will make me culpable of my future pain.

I’d love to say this is a miraculous realization for me, and that I’ll “let go and let God” (as my mother would say).  But the truth is I’ll probably will continue to wrestle with this for a while.