What would the heroine in your life movie do?
If you're like me, you often wish life were more like the movies. We would make excellent use of the hair and makeup people and have that marvelous movie advantage called I-can-walk-all-day-in-impractical-shoes-and-my-feet-never-hurt. There would be a soundtrack, of course, that followed us as we--so full of vim and vigor, spilling charm onto the sidewalk there's so much to spare!--bopped down the street carrying dahlias, a baguette, and TheNew Yorker. You know, movie heroine stuff. This isn't my daily reality. But would it be wrong to have a little more movie magic in our day-to-day?
One night a few years ago, feeling sad and depleted about something I can't even remember now, I called my friend Alison. I sat in my bedroom with the lights turned off, holding the phone tightly to my ear. That night, she offered the kind of advice that was perfect in that moment, and which, years later, I still fish out on rainy days. "What would the heroine in the movie version of your life do?"
It's a great question. There is us as we are: maybe wearing dirty socks, calling a handful of almonds a proper breakfast, some of yesterday's mascara still clinging to our lashes. We are not aided and abetted by hair and makeup people. There is no tidy wrap-up at the end of ninety minutes, and there's definitely no Javier Bardem. We're pulling it together as best we can on our own, every single freakin' day.
Some days, holding it together is all we can muster. But then there are the days when something in us wants a little something more. We reach for our favorite peep-toe flats, a skirt that twirls around our knees, or a volume of poetry we haven't picked up since college. We require something a little more cinematic. It's not that our lives need drama and climax--there's enough of that without a third act twist--but that we could be guided by another version of ourselves: the movie heroine. She sits down with a proper cup and saucer for an afternoon coffee. She thoughtfully gazes out windows and takes bike rides on pretty fall days. She makes standing on the curb and getting splashed by traffic seem like a lark!
Imagining this movie version of ourselves is like being guided by another persona. It's still us, foibles, dirty dishes and all. But rather than seeing all our "flaws" as something that need fixing, they're quirky, necessary character development. Think of Beauty and the Beast's Belle, the way her hair keeps falling into her eyes. Think of Carrie without her shoes dependence or Elizabeth Bennet without her quick tongue and snap judgments. Try thinking of yourself as the hero, just as you are.
I was reading something the other day that stopped me dead in my tracks. I didn't rip the page out, didn't even keep the magazine, but the sentiment keeps trailing me like too much perfume. "We feel like heroes in our lives by doing daily heroic acts." Maybe your heroine takes a long walk on the heath, er, treadmill, or writes a letter to a past teacher just to say thank you. Maybe she gives a dollar to the lone saxophonist on the street corner, calls her grandmother, or decides it's a liquid eyeliner kind of day. Whatever she does, though, she does with style and the courage of her convictions that this, whatever it is, is a vital part of her storyline.
So: what would the heroine in the movie version of your life do today?
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