{Personal Essay} Live Like You Were Dying

Lately, I've been writing a lot of personal essays. I don't know why, but I've just had this urge to write more, so I've been taking the time to get down whatever comes out. 

While spending time with my friends over the weekend, I told them that I didn't feel like I had a place to share these essays--I didn't feel like they fit in with the blog, exactly, but I wasn't sure where to submit them. As we discussed this issue, my friends urged me to create a space where personal essays could be shared, and I began to think that they were right. Maybe Starr Struck could support this type of writing, after all? 

So, starting today, I've decided to begin posting one personal essay or so per month to Starr Struck--with a title that includes a {Personal Essay} notation in order to make it clear that it's not a normal post. 

The tone of these essays might be slightly different than a typical blog post, as may the point of view, but I hope that you'll find these essays to be a welcome addition to the blog. I've decided that I think creative writing actually does fit in with my overall emphasis on living a creative lifestyle, and I hope that you'll agree. 

Similarly, in conjunction with sharing my own creative writing, I want to open up this creative writing column to YOU, my readers. Do you have a personal essay that you want to share with the world, but don't have a forum in which  to do so? Do you have something to say that you feel would be a good fit for Starr Struck's readers? If so, I'm accepting submissions. All of the details for how to submit your personal essay for review are here. 

That being said, lets get to the first essay, shall we?

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Live Like You Were Dying

I often think that my generation has seen too much—too many movies, too many reality TV shows, too many sitcoms. 

We’ve watched over-the-top romantic wedding proposals on YouTube, we've seen live car chases, terrorist attacks, and manhunts. We’ve witnessed hoarders struggle to part with their 12,000 VHS tapes on A&E, we've watched drunk people hook up on camera, and we’ve lived vicariously through Sex and The City, Entourage, and now, Girls.

As Chuck Klosterman explains in the first chapter of Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs, because of this, our generation has a tendency for “media transference.” We’ve been raised on entertainment, and therefore, our experiences of reality are inherently colored by this entertainment that we’ve been surrounded by our entire lives. Although I know that this is may be a difficult concept to accept, I think it is absolutely true.

After seeing Titanic in high school, I was broken-hearted. When I was feeling depressed, as I was for most of my teen years, I would go into my room, put on my “The Heart Will Go On” single, and play it on repeat, crying my eyes out. I needed the song to take me back to that place of utter hopelessness and despair that I felt when watching the movie. Not normal, I don’t think. But who am I to say for sure? Maybe generations before mine did the same thing with books, or newspapers, or fairy tales told around the fireplace. I really can’t say.

Similarly, recently, when my husband and I were on the beach in San Diego, watching the sunset, I couldn’t help but want to make it more than it was—I wanted it to be one of those experiences that I’d seen in my many years of watching Rom Coms—I wanted the moving music, the sweet nothings in my ear, the passionate kisses. They didn’t happen, even though it was still really special, but somehow, the lack of cinematic touches left me wanting more out of that moment.

I’ve noticed that in my own life, in situations like this one, I often unconsciously compare reality with what I’ve seen on a screen, even though I know that this comparison is completely unfair. Because lets be honest, reality will never live up to what’s been orchestrated by professionals with a budget of millions and billions of dollars. Right?

To me, this is what makes emotional moments in life difficult. When someone dies, you feel that you should be sobbing and broken, or silent and numb, just like they are in the movies. At weddings, you should be moved beyond belief, tearing up at every word said during the vows, dancing your heart out at the reception (as seen in the opening of Wedding Crashers). At a bar, you should be able to glance at a good-looking stranger, give them a sexy grin, and they should know that it’s on.

But life isn’t like that, and for many of us, that causes problems; If we’re at a wedding and we don’t feel the strong emotions that we feel when we watch The Bachelorette, how can we be good people? If our reaction to a death or a loss isn't as dramatic as what we've seen in the movies, what does that say about us? 

At the beginning of my sophomore year of college, my best friend’s father passed away. As with almost everyone I know who has passed away early, it was Cancer. My friend, Jessica, was stronger than I ever would have been, even though her family was a mess. Her father was her rock, and she lost him, just like that.

I knew that I would never be able to handle a loss like hers at that time, and I was in awe of her ability to return to school a few weeks later and still write papers, meet us for meals, and go out at night. She’s always been a bit superhuman (she has a photographic memory, which, if you’ve ever met someone with one, will blow you away!), so I attributed her ability to keep on living to her superpowers, and left it at that. 

My other best friend, Laura, and I and rode to the funeral together. We felt helpless—what could we possibly do or say to help our friend? There was nothing, absolutely nothing. This is often the feeling that we go through when someone close to us has lost their rock, and it’s a horrible feeling.

The funeral was packed, the pictures of Jessica’s family together made me feel raw inside, and seeing her face as she mourned her father was heartbreaking. But here’s the thing: it wasn’t until Tim McGraw’s “Live Like You Were Dying” came on that I felt myself begin to really cry. There was some point in the funeral, I can’t even remember when now, that they played that song on the loudspeaker, and that’s when I finally let go. I balled as though I had lost my own dad, and in a way, I felt like I had. I saw Jessica and her family, losing it on the other side of the aisle, and I felt every emotion possible.

But why, I still ask myself, did the song do it? Why couldn’t I have just felt those emotions when seeing Jessica, who I love with all my heart? This is one of the parts of the whole thing that upsets me. I can’t remember much of the funeral, for some reason, but I can remember that song, and how it made me feel, and Jessica’s face during that song. 

Media: always sweeping in and stealing our emotions.

As a friend, I tried to be there for her, but it wasn’t enough. Nothing is ever enough when it comes to dealing with intense loss, and no movie, song, or TV show could tell me how to fill the gaping hole in her life. In the movie, friends and loved ones are enough, but in life, it’s just never enough.

And then freaking Tim McGraw comes in and pulls out the emotional reaction that you’ve been expecting all along.