Do we expect our lives to turn out like a Disney movie? Think about it. We watch these very entertaining stories, set to energetic musical scores with women with the sweetest voices belting out inspirations messages. In these stories good always prevails over evil, and the main characters pull themselves out of a life less desired to find true love and work towards their happily ever after. And we make it worse by letting our children watch them over and over again, so these messages are deeply set, almost brainwashing our children to be the good guy in the story. In place of church, I guess our morals are now taught by Disney.
Oh there’s a thought!
In reality we have far more ups and downs than in Disney movies, and many of us never find our happy ending. NO! not like the massage parlors on Davie Street, that is not what I am talking about. I am talking about, ‘and they lived happily ever after’. It is our template after watching films our whole lives to honestly believe that is how it goes, anything short, we feel as though inadequate and that our lives are not treating us very well.
No wonder the majority of people in the world are on antidepressants!
I feverishly work on a song, almost obsessively in my spare time. I am trying to learn the words to Let It Go from the Disney movie FROZEN but this time in French.
Over the summer I found some methods of teaching teenagers English better than other methods, and the few things that worked on them over the season; I decided to try them on myself. Learning language through music seems obvious, yet somehow I am arriving at this conclusion a wee bit late. About three years or so…
The words resonate with me. While I sing, the words are truly a reflection of me leaving my home, starting again, and not caring what others think. These feelings are the same as when I left Canada, and here in the south of France, I am who I am, nothing more, nothing less. I give myself permission to just be me. And of course I too have magical powers. Ok maybe not…
The one amazing thing about starting again, is the preconceived notions of who I am (or was) are not even a factor. In some ways I am free. This freedom is incredible, and it does deliver me to a new level of contentment. I am not the same person I was back home. I’m never going back; the past is in the past. Metaphorically or physically matters not, but the transformation acknowledging the thought is enough to move forward. In the song it says, ‘here I am and here I’ll stay, let the storm rage on, the cold never bothered me anyway.’ Starting again can seem cold, and lonely but it is part of the process.
To let people know the real me has been hard. Back home I always tried to be what other people wanted me to be, but here all that is gone, stripped away miles into our journey. Now, I truck forward. I am stronger for it, sure of my abilities and confident in my work.
Why does this movie relate to my generation so well, I am not sure. Many younger women have told me it was the worst Disney film ever. But, my age group, closing in on forty or just over, I think we are from a generation that wanted to believe in the fairy-tale and probably got broken hearted when our prince turned out to be the frog and not the other way around. This movie shows us a better lesson; about family love, loss and how who you love doesn’t always have to be the swept off your feet, birds chirping in the background kind of romance. Sometimes love looks more like a good friendship, based on trust and common ground. My love story is exactly like that. I married my best friend.
Is my life a Disney movie? Yup, complete with my happy ever after.
