After telling Carl about his special time of eating ice cream and playing the count-the-car-game with his dad, Russell said, "It may sound boring but...it's the boring stuff that I remember the most." Something like that. I guess I really don't have much to say. That, to me, is a wonderful truth. It was the "small, boring stuff" that filled Ellie's and Carl's life together. Sorry; I don't mean to take it so seriously, I mean I know it's just a cartoon...but at the same time, I felt tonight that what it was actually showing was the meaning of life. Ellie was happy with her life, satisfied, not regretful or sad or upset- she didn't get to go on any big adventures...but the real adventure was living their "normal" lives day after day. They did it together. Their lives were filled with love, and that was enough; they were happy.
Not only is it a love story, but it's a life story. At one of the lowest points in the movie, when Carl has to throw everything out of his house so it will float again, Mel and I both appreciated the symbolism of having to let go in order to move on. He hadn't really said goodbye to Ellie, yet; he was filled with nastalgia and fear; he surrounded himself with memmories, but he stopped living his own life.
I know I do that: surround myself with nostalgic memmories of times when everything felt okay. Or feel completely lost without my "things," my "house," the symbols of my security, that the thought of facing the future without them makes me feel hopeless and lost.
I do feel a bit lost right now, on the whole. It's easy to feel lost when you think about the future too much. A day is going "badly," and I feel overwhelmed with all that I have to do, and I feel like I'm losing all my securities, and the storm is popping all my baloons and nothing is going according to my plan- then to think of days ahead, 1 day, 5 days, 2 weeks, a few months, a year, 10 years... it's a bad idea; it can seem a bit hopless and terribly heartbreaking if you happen to feel alone when you "project" into how your life may end up. What a foolish thing to do.
(This picture doesn't have to do with any idea in particular- I just think it's really cool/cute- and I want to see them and take a picture with them! With Andrew, Brian, Areli, Jessica, Rachel, and Anthony! :') )