Into the Wild…and Out Again

There’s a movie my boyfriend really likes called Into the Wild and I don’t understand why. I’ve read the plot summation and it sounds terrible. The ending is so sad…why? Why do humans do that to themselves? Why do we like sad endings? Life is sad enough as it is.

He doesn’t understand why I only love happy endings, or at least I don’t think he understands. I need happy endings. I need someone to look at me and tell me the world is beautiful and love exists and good people are out there. I know it’s true, that these things happen, but we don’t see it very often in our society. There must be some deep psychological meaning for me, personally, but maybe it’s just loving the rush of happiness when two people kiss at the end of a film, or the family is reunited, or the war ends or the hero lives.

I don’t know.

I have major depression. I come from a broken family with two very different households. Sure, I’m a first-world white girl, but that doesn’t instantly make everything in my life perfect. This blog has honestly kept me alive when I didn’t want to keep going. First-world white girl problems can happen and be just as bad as anything else. I only know my own pain, my own experiences. Putting myself on a level with someone else isn’t going to help me get better.

So I need those happy endings. They make the world a bright, beautiful place. I want one of my own someday. So when he asks me if I’ll watch Into the Wild with him, as he has done before, I’m sure I’ll say yes. Not because I want to see another sad situation in life, but because I love him. And guess what love is? A happy ending.

How much longer until I collapse?

My mom is really, really sick. But it’s been so long, a year, and I’m losing pity. I feel compassion and I hurt for my mom, and her pain. All I want is for her to get better so she can enjoy life again. But at the same time, she’s not making it easy to feel bad for her.

Because it’s hard for her she makes it hard on EVERYBODY. She’s on a special self-diagnosed diet, so she constantly complains about all the food she can’t eat. It’s really hard to eat when the person sitting across from you is moaning about how badly she wishes she could have the same dinner. It makes you sad, guilty, unable to swallow the suddenly-cement piece of chicken in your sorry throat. 

It stresses you out and your back hurts and your shoulders slump from carrying the weight of your world and all she can snap is, “Shoulders up! You walk like a hunchback!” And you sigh and carry on, shoulders back, because if you don’t she’ll only give you more hell. 

And on top if it all, taking a college class that’s tough and stressful but working so hard for the good grades you’re receiving. And the online class, which you have to keep track of yourself and make sure that you don’t get behind on so you can succeed and pass with good marks. Come home from school, do all your chores and your homework in record time, and collapse into bed. Only to get asked to get up again and make dinner for your ungrateful, whiny little brother because your mother is too sick to get out of bed and apparently, though he is a young adult, he cannot do so himself.

I know other people in the world have it much harder than I do, but you have to understand, I’m not them! I only know the stress that I feel in my own situation. It’s killing me, slowly, and I don’t want to sink under the weight of it all. God, help me, I’m not sure how much more I can take until I collapse.