It's Sunday. It's going to be a beautiful day in Los Angeles. Weekend mornings are my favorite. I wake up early and get to spend time with just me and my thoughts. The "what are you doing today" texts haven’t started rolling through. Or the "last night was so crazy" memes haven’t popped up in my IG DM's. The world is quiet. I hear nothing but the sound of my fan(s) and my keyboard. It's the perfect Sunday morning. I'm sitting on my couch, with puffy red eyes and a runny nose. It sounds as if I'm sick, right?
I woke this morning and put a movie on, like I do every weekend. I chose Collateral Beauty because it looked great and has some of my favorite actors. Now if you have not seen this movie, you should do so immediately. I cried....not a cute single tear cry....but massive sobbing. Hell, I'm crying as I write this. I'm not a crier, if you know me, you know how rare it is for me to cry at something. But here I am. My body has chosen to defy my mind.
This movie is about relationships. A relationship by definition is "The way in which two or more concepts, objects, or people are connected or the state of being connected." Connection. I fucking love that word. Connection. So this movie is about connection or connecting with another thing. Now when you hear people say relationship you automatically think of a romantic bond between people. But what if it wasn't.
A relationship between a man and a woman. A relationship between a man and a man or woman and woman. A relationship between a person and food or a person and exercise. A relationship between a person and drugs or alcohol. A relationship between Time, Love and Death.
We long for love. We wish we had more time. We fear death. That is our why.
My relationship with Death. I start with Death because it is so foreign for me. No one close to me has died. I know it's coming though. My mom lost her dad last year. And I've never seen her so devastated. I didn't know him that well but seeing her so sad was heartbreaking for me. I know if my mom died I would be inconsolable. I'm terrified of the people I love dying. But in the same breath, death to me is inevitable. I'm not scared of dying. If it's my time to go, then so be it. But I am so unearthly terrified of dying without knowing true love. To live for the next 50 years without it is a life I don’t want.
My relationship with Time. I always heard growing up that the older you get, the faster time goes. I always thought adults were wasting their lives. If it's going so fast, then you need to change something! But then I started working and the saying has never been so apparent to me. I'm almost 30 and I've just started doing the things I love. I'm almost 30 and have never been in love. I'm almost 30 and I've never traveled anywhere. And it's all my fault. I could come up with a million excuses as to why. But that's all it is...an excuse. There's not enough time in the day to do everything I want. Time is a gift. Time is greatest asset. And it's our biggest hindrance.
My relationship with Love. Oh love. My favorite thing in the whole world...even though I've never experienced it firsthand. I never knew how much I longed for true love and passion until I started writing. In the movie Collateral Beauty, Love says "I’m the darkness and the light. I'm the sunshine and the storm. I am the reason for everything. I am the only why." And her saying that hit me right in my gut like a ton of bricks. Trying to live without love is like trying to breathe underwater. You can't do it. Love surrounds us. It's everywhere. A couple holding hands. A mom hugging her daughter. Two friends seeing each other after months apart. I started telling my friends I love you when I leave or get off the phone. They probably think I'm crazy, and that's ok. But I would never want a single one of them to think I didn't love them. So I say it to them all the time. I've never been in love. But I can't wait. I am so excited for the day where I'll be sitting on my couch writing, a movie playing in the background and I look up and see the love of my life. To think "god, how did I ever live without this love in my heart." To be sitting on our porch at 70 years old thinking I can't believe he chose me every day for the past 40 years. To look into our child’s eyes and love them with every ounce of my being.
Relationships are what makes the world go round. Our relationship with Time determines how we spend our Sunday mornings. Our relationship with Death determines how we may or may not treat someone, or even ourselves. And our relationship with Love determines the connection with have with another person. Whatever you are going through now, just make sure to notice the Collateral Beauty.
Xoxo
Allison