I have a few favorite movies I watch over and over again.
They are my safe worlds.
I go to them when a day has been hard.
I put them on and sit to watch as if for the very first time.
My brain rests while entering a familiar world, witnessing someone else’s life.
Crying about someone else’s loss.
And why we must allow ourselves inside these safe worlds.
We must give ourselves a break from our own.
When my husband died, my dad took me to the store and he purchased the biggest TV we could fit in the car.
One third of it was sticking out as we were driving home.
I remember I spent the first few months watching Grey’s Anatomy after I put the girls to bed.
For an hour or two I was immersed inside someone else’s tragedy.
That gave me a breather from my own grief.
In the last few years I have watched The Time Traveler’s Wife at least 20 times.
For those of you who have watched it, you know how the wife in the movie, is able to see her husband after he has passed. And for that one moment we lose ourselves in their reunion.
As they run across the field to embrace each other before he disappears again, we imagine ourselves being the ones running.
We are the ones reuniting.
No matter how many times I watch that part, I stop everything I am doing and sit still so I won’t miss anything.
I am inside a timeless existence while it plays.
Interstellar is another movie I have watched countless times.
And it is not because it has to do with space, but because it has to do with grief.
Specifically grief experienced outside of time.
They lose decades of the lives of their loved ones back on earth.
For them though, it has only been hours.
During those scenes, the way grief is captured is so poignant.
I know you have a favorite movie too.
Maybe tonight, after a long week you put your feet up and let yourself escape inside the safe world of the familiar.
Inside a world you can be a part of, without having to risk anything or lose anyone.
After all, true healing lives inside stories, fictional or not.
It is the only place we can truly witness our own journey. (Click to tweet!)
With many safe worlds,
Christina
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