I love how entertainment in pretty much all it’s guises holds space for feeling emotions that aren’t always easy to hold, or for feelings that you want more of. I have been grieving a bit of my old life where I was completely a stay at home mum and the primary carer of my son. It’s been small steps but nonetheless I can feel the heaviness of it all. Along with that I heard some information about myself and my parents from when I was very small which just confirmed that my parents always had another agenda other than being parents, and it hurt me. The combination of all of this has created a very heavy heart. I have cried, I have been a bit distraught. I have sought out music to soothe, and movies to cry along with.

Most recently I have found that the movie Me Before You just makes me bawl, I mean full on sobbing, chin quivering kind of crying. It follows a storyline of a pretty happy go lucky guy who then becomes a paraplegic from the neck down who then gets a carer who wants to convince him not to end his life in six months which is his plan. It’s sad. I mean it’s a really sad story. A good guy who gets hit by a motorcycle while he’s walking around town and his life is changed forever. I know how things can change in an instant and I’m thankful consistently that in my head on collision, I came out relatively unscathed, with just a scar across my face to show of it physically. This poor guy is in pain and doesn’t accept that this is his new life, and I get that, I totally get that and there isn’t a way for him to get better, it’s irreversible. Then comes this lovely, quirky carer who brings another layer of emotion and in the end he still makes his decision. She is so sad that he would choose euthanasia, but I understand his part as well. He talks about how he will never be able to give her the life she deserves, and that he never wants her to ever have a regret that she chose a life caring for him like that. In the end he reminds her via a letter he wrote before, that when she is ever sad, to live well, and just live. Oh it’s so sad and it ends with a feeling of the importance of living life fully right now.

I feel like I have used this movie as a safe space for me to really experience the deep emotions that are surrounding my own life transitions right now. I can feel that I need to let it out, and I really appreciate that I have the option of using media to help me let this go.

From my own experience with grief, after my father passed away last year, I came to realise that all of my emotions are like their own little wells. That each well has a spring and maybe another little pool of water. At first it’s just the top of the spring that is experienced, but as the emotion goes deeper it’s like I come to one of the pools, but if I keep going, I notice that all of the memories where I have experienced that feeling, all seem to be held in that bottom well, that super deep space within myself. It’s almost by accessing one of those memories I can then use that to dive deeper into that feeling and explore more. It’s actually really fascinating.

So by having a safe guided experience, that is totally normal in society, like sitting in the dark watching something like a dream on the big screen while we feel everything, I am allowed to fully express my emotions there. I can scream if I feel scared, I can cover my eyes and my ears, I can laugh a hearty laugh with my head tiled back, I can cry and cry like a big baby, and it’s all so very okay.