Emotional Puberty, My Hearts Open Wide Again, and Garden State

Sometimes the mirror is the most foreign site I have ever gazed upon. Every once in awhile I stop and gaze. Not like Narcissus, ever to lust after himself, although I can’t always feign innocence from such ventures. Rather I look and gaze into the years of change and growth purpose and five o’ clock shadows, beards, tears, dirt, wrinkles, hope, and loss. I’ve changed.

Peter Bradley Adams – The Heart of a Girl

I don’t remember puberty much. When I was a kid I grew hair in odd places and my voice got deeper, now I’m losing hair in odd places and my voice is probably getting higher. Perhaps I do remember those strange days of natural and physical change, yet I perceived not what was happening. We all go through it, well the ones lucky enough to live long and finish out childhood. I am enamored today by the thought of emotional puberty. The constant changing and shifting of my self and character. Who I was two years ago does not resemble much of who I am now. My eyes are the same color, yet they are not same shade. For awhile the weight of grief has stolen a little bit of the light from them and withheld it despite my pleas. Now they are alight, brighter than they had ever been in the past.

There is this movie that is transcendent. It’s about nothing and everything at the same time. Garden State. The movie speaks quite a bit to me as it taps into the biggest problems and feelings of our generation. We are lost. We are confused. We have degrees and an education but lack the significance of purpose that was handed down for thousands of years.

What great battle is there to fight? What great place is there left to explore? What can we invent? There was a time when the world had bright eyes and there was so much mystery. Yet the devastating blows of science and television have rendered our sense of mystery dull.

In Garden State, a young man is living a life he doesn’t want to live. He is putting on make up to pretend to be Asian as a waiter in Los Angelos. Throughout the beginning of the film we see he is so heavily medicated that a plane crashing won’t shake him up. We see him stuck at one point at an audition for a screenplay. This is his life, the professional actor. The white shirt no name that is trying to be someone else. The imagery in this movie is stunning, yet hidden deeply. One day he gets a call and his mother has passed away.

It is this strange event that causes him to be brought back home, and for the first time in years he has to deal with the past. He has to deal with what has been going on. He has to reconcile the strange memories of his past, the father who was distant, the relatives he never really embraced. It is in that moment of humor and quirkiness that the main character stops taking his pills. As the movie rolls on, he finds part of this generations journey, a girl. A beautiful girl. One who is quirky and crazy and is more like him then he knows. She is a compulsive liar. He is a shy and withdrawn individual. Yet her zest for life makes the young man start to look at his life and what’s going on.

Throughout the movie we see him reconcile his past, stand up to characters he never had before, talk to his father, and stare into the infinite abyss. There is one scene that has always been burned into my mind where he finally cries after all these years of being reserved. He isn’t crying because of how hard life is or deep pain. He cries because he is himself and for once he finally feels safe.

The film ends with the main character choosing between his old life, or staying to deal with his past and the new life offered through the girl he met and the journey he’s been on. It has only been three days yet he is rather changed. The movie ends not with an epic kiss or a scene of bravery. It ends with the shy boy who is becoming more of himself, bold, and funny standing there with the compulsive lying girl who is just as lost as him. It ends in confusion. It ends without resolving. I think that is poetic. Because when the main character faked his life, the ending could be seen so easily. Yet when he became himself, well that was when not even a minute into the future is visible.

I could talk for hours on Garden State. Someday in fact, maybe I will. That movie is dear to my heart.

I am not Zach Braff, although sometimes I feel if I was to meet him on the street we would exchange one of those nods that says “Your world, should be friends with my world, but alas, we are in a different world.”

Feeling has rushed into my soul these last few months in ways that I can hardly describe. The color has came back to my face. My life is new and fresh. I am thinking about how perhaps if I was seen by the same old friends, 12,000 miles removed, I might look quite different. Time does strange things to a soul. Not nearly as strange as a loving God does though.  

Sometimes I wonder if I had my Garden State moment years ago but got on that airplane. Sometimes I wonder if I’ve been running when safety was right there all along. It’s probably good not to wonder, sometimes my face leaks and I look silly.

Mmmm, I’m having my Garden State moment right now too though. My pills are gone and emotion is free to breathe. I’m open. I’m confronting the things I numbed myself too in order to ignore them so many years ago. It’s strange to look in the mirror these days. I’m thinner, but not in a gaunt and unnourished way. It’s the thinness that comes from the hard labor and strengthening moments of life. I’m funnier. Maybe not in a tangible sense but I can feel deep inside my humor boiling up and my personality feeling free to thrive and grow. It’s a great time to be alive. A strange time. One of those times where I wonder what will happen. Where even brief friendships will water and plant, flourish and change me more than deep long ones can, because my walls are down and I am moldable. I just want to scream into the infinite abyss.

I used to write a lot and long for an audience. As I am returning to my craft I find that I am somewhat relieved for the anonymous and never-read things I can publish into the open space. I think writing was never about being listened too, it was the deepest working out, thinking, and expressing of who I am. It’s nice. I feel free.

Peter Bradley Adams – I tell myself