The Black Swan

I just have to write about this movie because it has been haunting me ever since I saw it.  I can't get it out of my thoughts and how much it disturbed me.  It was such a well done film and so beautifully hypnotic that I just couldn't take my eyes away from it.  It was so captivating, but truly horrifying and infinitely sad.

I think of how many girls out there have felt like they needed to be perfect.  That's all Nina wanted, to be perfect.  She kept saying it throughout the movie.  And when she said it, it was usually in this thin, weak, nearly inaudible voice.  The voice of a child.  The voice of someone in pain and ashamed.  Ashamed that they think they could possibly be perfect when they are so flawed.

I just read that paragraph and realized that I wrote, "That's all Nina wanted, to be perfect."  Yes, that's all.  As if being perfect is an everyday occurrence in people.  That most people walking around out there are perfect and she was the one left out in the cold, in the land of the imperfect, misfit people.  See, it's so easy to just assume that perfection is ideal and the norm.  It's not.

Nobody is perfect.  Nobody.  But a lot  of people try to be and a lot of people kill themselves trying, like Nina.

She didn't find satisfaction with any of the many accomplishments she had achieved.  Just being a dancer for a living and being a part of a prestigious ballet company would be amazing.  At least that's what I say, but I know that I would have been like Nina too.  Once I got  in, I would have thought, "Well, anyone could do this.  I need to do better, be better and achieve more!"

She couldn't be perfect if she was distracted by  her own life, so she lived with her mom.  She didn't have friends, she didn't do anything fun.  She  had no joy.  I kept wanting to shake her and say, "But Nina, you're not perfect if you are so one-sided!  You're driving yourself mad!  You're driving yourself sad!  Stop!"

She eventually doesn't know what is real and what isn't and we, as the audience, don't really either.  She is so confused by her pain.  Her emotional pain.  She scratched herself to the point of having a rash or chronic scabs because she wanted to feel something.  She was numbed by her sadness and jealousy and feelings of inadequacy.  She just wanted to feel something real, so she scratched herself and imagined hurting herself to much higher degrees. 

And in her desperate quest to find the darkness, the imperfection and stinging bite of the Black Swan within herself, she had to pretend to kill someone to get there. But she killed herself.  In her cloud of emotional confusion she kills herself, but she still doesn't get it.  As she lays dying on the mattress at the end she says to the lecherous, sick director, "I was perfect."

I took that to mean that it was worth it to her.  To have that one brief flicker of real perfection, killing herself was a small trade-off.  I can't imagine anything so sad or joyless.
I hardly know where to go from there.  I know we all have moments when we look at ourselves in the mirror and think, if only I was perfect.  Actually, I find myself saying it more often when I am comparing myself to someone else.  "If only I was as perfect as her..."

Well, "she's" not perfect.  No one is.  Who knows what kind of problems or hell "she's" been through to get that perfect thing you want.  Maybe "she" got that beautiful hair from a mother that abandoned her.  Maybe "she" is so thin because she can't stop exercising and tortures herself if she doesn't hit the gym 3 times a day.  Think of those things the next time you find yourself wanting to be "perfect" like that other person.
Nina would be someone I would look at on the street and envy.  Beautiful, graceful, thin.  But I don't want to be like Nina.  Her life was a completely joyless existence.  There isn't any time in that movie that you feel an emotion remotely close to happiness or joy.  Even when she finds out she got "the part" and she's calling her mom from the bathroom stall, it's painful to watch.  So, desperate, so childlike, so suppressed.  It just made me weep.

And now, being a mother myself, I think of watching this happen from the mother's perspective.  Her mother's character, who obviously has some problems herself, clearly has pushed Nina in some way, but it is never really made clear.  She has used Nina somehow to fulfill something she never acheived, which is something I find so transparent and despicable.  Like those mothers on those toddler beauty pageant shows.  They are so sick and so obviously trying to feel beautiful through their daughters, because, let's face it, none of the moms on those shows are beautiful. 

Why do these mothers seem so oblivious to the fact that they are damaging their child?  That is what is scary to me, that maybe that behavior just happens if you aren't happy with yourself and your life.  Does one just start making their child do things that make themselves feel happy and fulfilled and they aren't conscious of what they're doing?  Is it some sort of coping behavior?

Nina's mother wasn't conscious of what she had done until the very end and she saw Nina on stage for the last scene of the ballet.  I'll never forget the look on the mother character's face.  It was a mix of "Oh, my God, what have I done?" and "Someone, STOP, help my child!  Don't you see she needs help?"

I think of my Abigail spinning away on that stage so in pain and I just ache.  Just thinking about it.  Why didn't that mother climb up on stage and tackle her and have her taken away?  Or at least tackle her backstage.  She knew her daughter wasn't right and she knew she, her mother, had a hand in it. 

I like to think that I will never do anything so selfish as living through my child, but after watching this movie and even seeing those horrible pageant shows, I don't know if I can be so self-righteous as to say, "I'd never do something like that."  After all, none of us is perfect or above any flaw.

That mother's face haunts me every day and I hope it does when the moment comes when I say, "Abby, you have to keep taking piano or figure skating or gymnastics.  It's good for you, you're good at it.  You have to keep doing it."  May that mother's face pop into my mind and make me bite my tongue and remember what I promised Abby in the womb. 

I told her that my wish for her was to always be happy with herself.  That's all.  I just want her to be happy, whatever she chooses to do, to be, to be with, just to be happy and to be my Abigail.  She is just pure joyfulness and this movie has made me aware that I must protect that joyfulness that she exudes. 

We all must protect our own joy as well.  It is so easy to let it snuff out.  I'm so sensitive that I can let one negative statement from someone ruin my whole day.  I'll admit that.  I'll admit that my mental state isn't a far cry from Nina's some days. That's why I have had such a visceral reaction to this movie and feel I must tell you all to not let yourselves fall under the spell of perfection.  There is no such thing.  It's like searching for the Holy Grail, you'll never find it, never acheive it no matter how hard you work.  And that's not a bad thing. 

Do things well, do things with integrity, do things with kindness, but don't let the pursuit of perfection creep in.  Remember Nina and remember her mother.  Neither one of them could let it go and it destroyed them both.  Such a sweet siren call it can be at first, that feeling that you do something so well and could do it even better and be more admired!  Such a high, such a drug, but such a killer.

The Rash Attack

I haven't posted in a while and that has definitely been going against my efforts to live a more joyful life.  But the truth is my life has not been all that joyful lately, thus, I have not felt like writing.  But, I do find that if you just keep putting one foot in front of the other and persevering and being courageous (or at least faking it) that things do pass and better times do come.

Work has been a huge point of stress for the past couple of weeks as our big new software system "went live".  How thrilling!  It has kind of been one disaster after the other and staying late to figure out how to put out fires and dealing with a lot of frantic, angry people.  Not much fun. 

So, I think because of this stress I came down with a sinus infection.  I don't know how one "comes down" with a sinus infection, I always thought you had some sort of cold and it progresses into a sinus infection, but I just seemed to wake up with one.  Who knows, but I go to the doctor and he looks in an ear, down my throat and in my nose and says, "Sinus infection."  Prescribes anitbiotics and I think, "Well, that was quick.  Good, now I can get back to my stressful life."  So, that's what I do.  I was especially happy he gave me the 5 day antibiotic that gets rid of whatever really fast.

Then, the same little monitor that lives in my body and tells me when I'm on overload that I haven't been listening to decides to slap me around again.  A couple days later I am at the hairdresser and she says, "Say, did you know you have this red patch on your neck?  Have you been scratching yourself or something?" 
Voice inside my head:  "Scratching myself?  Gross."
Voice coming out of my mouth:  "No."
So, we carry on with typical salon talk and she stops and says, "Uh, did you know this red splotchiness is on your scalp?"
Voice inside my head:  Loud Screaming.  "What if it spreads to my face??????"
Voice coming out of my mouth:  "No."
She continues in skeptical, cautious, get me away from this leper tone, "It seems to be spreading around your neck too.  It looks like it hurts.  Is it itchy?"
Voice inside my head:  Loud Screaming. 
Voice outside my head:  "No, it doesn't itch."
She finishes quickly and tells me to buy some Benadryl on the way home.  She was very nice, I give her a lot of credit, she probably wanted to throw her scissors and run, but she finished and was even kind of helpful.  I was so frazzled I never would have bought Benadryl.

I did go to the pharmacy and gave the pharmacist a list of the pills I had taken in the past two days and leaning over the counter desperately asked him, "Which one is giving me THIS?"
He also gives me the cautious, get me away from this leper tone and tells me to stop the antibiotics and go to the emergency room if I can't breathe.

So, I am laying on the couch that night staring at the TV completely covered so my gross rash doesn't touch anything and waiting to stop breathing.  The rash has now spread from neck to scalp to chest and back, lovely.  Seinfeld comes on and as the episode keeps unfolding I realize, to my  horror, that my recent life has been a bit like George Costanza's.  Nobody wants to be like George Costanza.  It's fun to laugh at George Costanza, but he really is an awful, miserable person.

It's the episode where he thinks he's having a heart attack and instead finds out he has to have his tonsils removed.  So, to save money he goes to this crazy wholistic healer guy and ends up drinking tea that makes him purple.  That was my low point, laying on the couch covered in my purplish rash feeling like the purple George Costanza.  He's screaming at the top of his lungs like I wanted to in the hair salon and I can identify with George.  How depressing.

In the end, I think that my body is just not going to be gentle with me anymore.  I didn't listen after I had the accident.  I slowed down for a little while, but not long enough to heal.  I've had four sinus infections now this winter, so I think maybe my body is telling me something there too and I haven't listened.  So, after my low "purple George" moment I decided that a rash is a pretty visible, tangible sign.  I've got to change something in my life.  I can't ignore that there is no room for joy right now in my life.  Something has to give.

So, I have been applying for new jobs around the Beaver Dam area.  It's a little discouraging because frankly, there isn't much around here, but I know I will find something.  Then, that will give me 2 and a half more hours with my daughter or my husband or for myself each day.  Maybe I could heal from this accident.  Maybe I could knit again, maybe I could exercise again, maybe my husband and I would talk again.  Maybe I won't have to work at night or on weekends anymore. 

I try to stay hopeful and feel better now that I have made the decision to not ignore the signs anymore.  Even if it takes awhile to find a job, I do find myself taking the one I have less seriously.  I'm not as rabid about work anymore because I'm frankly kind of angry with it.  It has made my life rather miserable.  I like the work I do and the people I work with are great, but it isn't a realistic situation anymore and I have to stop pretending it is. 

It's rather freeing to say, even if just to yourself, "You know what, this just doesn't work for me."

At least it has put me back on the road to being joyful.  I think.