another one about forrest and jenny

I suppose if you've read any of my earlier blog posts then you might recollect that I am intrigued by the movie Forrest Gump.  It's funny, because a lot of my life has played out in ways that I can relate to the movie.  The basics: Forrest and I were both students at the University of Alabama.  Forrest and I both love running, our Mama's, and Elvis.  And, Forrest and I have always had that one special person in our lives.  Jenny was a folk music loving 'hippie' and we both love Joan Baez.  In my younger years, my family called me "Bubba" when I had to rock the "lip bumper" for orthodontic reasons.  And when I'm mad, sometimes I wish I could fly free like a bird just like Jenny wished, or I throw rocks into thin air out of anger.  Like Forrest said though, "sometimes, I guess, there just aren't enough rocks."

I'm a human and because of that, I can't say that I have been strong and graceful throughout this entire fire situation.  I get frustrated, a lot!  I try to get caught up with schoolwork and have to relearn that my textbooks don't exist anymore and I get excited about wearing one of the new outfits my mother bought me right before the fire and have to remember that I don't have that wardrobe anymore.  I'll go to invite friends over and remember that there's not too much room in my temporary home.  Little things seem to have gotten the best of me lately.  I'm tired, fatigued, and not as easy to wake up in the mornings these days.  Not that I have ever been a morning person, but it seems to me that I dread having to start another day in this weird "funk" I have been living in.  Yesterday, I was not having one of my 'better days'.  That was until I decided to watch my favorite of all movies.  This required me to go to Target and use one of the gift cards that friends contributed to me, but it was well worth it.

So many things enlightened me, inspired me, and humored me - as that movie always does.  I have SEVERAL favorite scenes, but the one that always got to me most when I was a little girl is the same one that get to me most nowadays.  When Forrest returns from Vietnam and reconnects with Jenny, who was gypsying across the nation, from "Berkeley to D.C.", in an old Volkswagen van.  She asks him "why are you so good to me?" and he simply says "'cause you're my girl."  It's funny because I don't think of myself as a romantic and I definitely straddle both sides of the whole destiny and fate thing.  But even as a young girl, and especially now, I always have wanted someone who loves me unconditionally and doesn't care if my style is a little wacky. I want someone who doesn't want to intersect with my personal dreams, but rather support me and love me through my life journey, while having a journey of his own at the same time.  The kind of love that stands beside you and guides you, rather than hold you back or push you into a life you don't want.  Maybe we all have that person, or maybe there is just a lucky few that do, but I know I have him in my life.

I admire him because he has never tried to be my teacher, but he is the one person that would always be there for me when I need to throw rocks at my past and if I wanted to be made into a bird and fly away, he'd pray it with me.  I know I'll always be "his girl" and he knows I'll always have some crazy, far-out dream to chase.  But that's where it might differ, because he's the one person, other than my family, that believes in me and doesn't find even the craziest ideas of mine to be all that crazy.  He just knows that is who I am and how I'll always be, and as long as I keep my heart open and stay true to myself, he'll dream it with me.

And he knows that he is special to me just like Forrest knew he was special to Jenny.  They were one another's first friend, best friend, and soulmate.  I think of how it would've been if I hadn't had this 'first friend' of mine at Alabama stick with me through the good times and bad these five years.  It is probably safe to say that the whole course of my college history would have been shaped entirely different if we weren't able to withstand some of the adversity that came our way.  I can't help but admire the relationship that we have and we both know that it is far from ordinary.  Plus, our friends remind us of how not normal what we have is.  But like Ms. Gump said, "What's normal anways?"

So as I begin rebuilding my things, it is important that I only take with me the things that mean the most to me.  Obviously my family and friends are the essence of my life, and with them, I do not need the material things that I lost.  But, I'm a go-getter and I promised myself that I wouldn't let the fire hold me back from having the things that make me who I am.  The sleeve of leather and bangle bracelets, the journals I pour my heart into, the music that makes playlists of all different aspects of my life, and the clothes that describe me as a girl who's wild at heart.  All of those things will be rebuilt, and soon I'll be rockin' my style like a fire never happened.  But, I still won't be "Baily" without the friends that have truly and undoubtedly made me who I am. 

There's no need to hang on to the people in my past that don't support me in my new beginning.  Like Forrest was always told, "you've got to put the past behind you before you can move on," I firmly believe that to be true.  The people who try to hinder me from embracing my crazy life and the ones who haven't been here for me when I was throwing rocks during this difficult time.  I guess life has a funny way of showing us our purpose and the ones we value most.  I'm just glad I didn't keep my heart closed off any longer because losing my possessions in a fire doesn't compare to the damage I could do to my life by not letting someone in who has loved me longer and loved me deeper than anyone else.

It never fails that I learn something new about Forrest Gump every time I watch it.  I may have known the lines of the movie by heart (I don't kid!) but I didn't know too much about that heart of mine until now.  I don't know why he's so good to me, but I'll guess that it's because I will always be his girl.

Peace&Love

Bjj

"I'm not a smart man, but I know what love is."

Destiny

"I don't know if we each have a destiny, or if we're all just floating around accidental-like on a breeze, but I, I think maybe it's both. Maybe both is happening at the same time." -Forrest Gump

My friends have always joked with me about my cynicism and sarcastic nature when it comes to topics of fantasy, fairy-tale, destiny, and fate. I'm deemed unworthy of happiness and doomed to fail by my bright-eyed and bushy-tailed girlfriends who believe in happily ever-afters just as much as they did when they were eight years-old. My guy friends are a little more tolerable of my realistic outlook on this subject. In relationships, some take it to be a personal message from me to them despite that not always being the case. I've been told that I was a pessimist and that I should try to be more optimistic when it comes to 'everything happening for a reason', as the cliche goes. However, I consider myself neither a pessimist nor an optimist, but rather - a realist. A realist is someone who looks at the reality of situations without manipulating it as either negative or positive. Instead, a realist looks at a situation as a whole and considers a situation's factors and outcomes in their entirety. Therefore, I look at the 'destiny' and 'fate' topics with a more realist-oriented mind.

I do believe in happily ever-after. I believe in serendipity, destiny, and fate. I believe that everything happens for a reason and I believe in fairy tales. I know what it is like to dream big and I know what it feels like to reach a goal that was set. However, I don't believe we just sit back and watch it all happen. My belief is that we all play an intricate role in determining whether our life ends up with either a happy ending, an epic or heroic conclusion, a horrible and painful ending, or a cliff-hanging end that puts us all on hold for the sequel to come out. I do believe that fate and destiny exist by giving you the hand you were dealt. What you do with those cards is up to you, however. Depending on the choices you make, your feelings and emotions, your core values and morality, and many other factors, is whether your personal life story is worth making a movie out of, and if it is - what is the genre? Would you be an Oscar-winning drama or a horror story? Would you be a tragedy of misfortunate events, or a black and white film without any splash of color? A comedy? An epic tale? Maybe fate and destiny dealt you a jackpot winning hand by making a Disney Princess movie out of you. Nonetheless, you are given the opportunity to play the hand you are dealt which means that every thing doesn't 'just happen', you can make them happen or prevent them from happening.

As a little girl the movie Forrest Gump, my all-time favorite, could use it's dialogue to teach me some of life's important lessons. Today, I still use some of the memorable quotes said by Forrest, Jenny, Ms. Gump, Lieut. Dan, and Bubba in order to relate to my own life. Most of us have all probably seen this movie, released in 1994, that portrayed revolutions that filled the United States in the 21st century. Like a U.S. History textbook had come to life, we learned about Vietnam as well as segregation in the South and the historical 'stand at the schoolhouse door' that took place at the University of Alabama. We learned about the Anti-Vietnam hippie-movement, the 1960 drug culture, and the storied musical era. We learned about political assassinations, the Watergate Scandal, and the military. We saw Elvis, Bear Bryant, and The Beatles. We watched a boy with special needs grow up, become a hero, fall in love with his best friend, become a millionaire, and bury his only love after she lost her battle with HIV/AIDS. Loving these characters was the only option I was given when I was first introduced to this movie fifteen years ago.

However, when I first saw this movie at age eight, I obviously did not relate in the same ways I do now. When young Jenny would pray "Dear Lord, make me a bird so I can fly far. Far, far away from here" I related when I was having a bad day in school or was sad due to the miniscule personal tragedies that taunt a third-grader. Now, I relate to older Jenny when she throws rocks at her old house and Forrest narrates by saying "Sometimes, I guess, there just aren't enough rocks." After being hurt, lost, and wandering in the world, I know the intense pain that your past can hold over you. Regrets, guilt, disappointments - sometimes throwing it all back doesn't equal a full relief of the pain and eventually you run out of rocks to throw. Maybe that's why my take on destiny and fate differs from most other girls. Maybe they still have rocks to throw, maybe they never wandered outside of their comfort zone so they have no reason to look at it from my perspective. Maybe the pessimistic girls were hurt even worse than I was by past relationships and therefore they feel as if all signs lead to negativity and as if they can't throw some of the rocks back at where they came from.

Forrest, narrating another pearl of wisdom from Ms. Gump says, "My momma always said, sometimes we've got to put the past behind us in order to move on." This quote has sought me through more trials than I can remember and also plays a factor in my personal views of the topics on destiny, fate, and serendipity. It has a way of explaining that the past affects our future only in the way that we want it to that helped me to develop the way I looked at life - it's opportunities, it's setbacks, it's risks, and it's rewards. Putting the past behind you in order to move on has always been an incredible truth in my life and it has helped me gain perspective on life's most important lessons - love, family, and happiness.

Lately, my ability to put the past where it belongs - behind me - and my recognition of destiny being both a thing of 'chance' as well as a thing of 'choices', I have seen fate at work in my personal life. I've witnessed serendipity and I've found a level of contentment that I have never felt before, yet I somehow knowingly accept my new happiness as 'what's meant to be will be.' I've let friendships that were empty of intimacy and mutual respect become things of the past in order to move forward into new chapters in my life. I've moved on in school, romantic happiness, and personal confidence because of the choices I've made in my life when fate and destiny deal me a new hand. I've left things behind because destiny and fate have given me new chances, and sometimes it's more fun, and a better decision, to be out with the old and in with the new so as to be lucky enough to experience serendipity for the first time in your life. Trust me.

Forrest asked his mother, "What's my destiny, Mama?"

She answered by saying, "You're going to have to figure that out for yourself."

Each of us are given opportunities, chances, consequences, and rewards throughout our entire lives. Sometimes destiny and fate help us out a little or cut us break; sometimes they're absent and we feel like we are going to be stuck spending our whole life searching for meaning and purpose. But in my life - and my realistic perspective makes this even sweeter - my destiny and fate presented themselves for the first time when I least expected it. I guess, in the grand scheme of things, I am a true believer. When I was at a point in my life that I least believed in happy endings and I was bitter toward my lack of 'everything happening for a reason,' I was dealt a new hand, I played my cards right, and I know serendipity on a personal level now.

I used to wish I never had to experience the turbulence and setbacks that hurt me so badly, the ones that left me wounded and scarred. I wish some of my past mistakes would go away at the throw of a rock. Now, however, I am grateful for all of my experiences - because without pain and without hurting how are we supposed to know how good it feels when the pain and hurt go away? Without a bumpy past, how would we know the smooth ride we're on today is the better feeling one?

"You have to do the best with what God gave you." -Ms. Gump

-bjj

the 'other' sister