I just got back (well, not just, as it's taken time for me to write and edit this) from seeing Shortbus, for the second time. I realized I hadn't reviewed it, and I will after I write this post. But for some reason, the movie leaves me highly emotional, so I want to get some thoughts written down before I dilute them with things like a movie review. They're diluted enough as it is, just from driving back home to the suburbs. Suburbs seem to have that sort of numbing effect on people, I've noticed.

I'll start off with a nice, bland disclaimer. Nothing in the whining-to-come should be interpreted as me feeling like I "identify" with some aspect of the movie. This is no tortured Emo kid's plea to be noticed and "understood". So if you think you'll find yourself smirking over any of this, you might want to just skip it. If you venture forth and end up smirking anyway, do me a favor and just move along. Don't send me e-mail tut-tuting my self-indulgent navel-gazing. Just don't.

I'll make it easier... I'll put in a cut-line to keep anyone from accidentally reading.

I honestly don't know why I've come away from this film (both times) in such an emotional state. Sometimes I get this way, though this is the first time in quite a while that I could identify a specific trigger. I mean, usually it'll be some random thing on TV, a song or story on the radio, that sort of thing. I think the music in this film has a lot to do with it. The director chose and placed the music masterfully. This time, I bought the soundtrack CD afterwards (it's currently only available in theaters showing the movie; like the movie, I'll review it in a later post). Certain of the songs are pushing the same buttons I felt being pushed at the points in the movie they appeared.

So what the hell? Why am I so damn weepy? I mean, the two points in the movie that get me so worked-up are pretty powerful, but they aren't the cause in and of themselves. They're just catalysts that add to the overall reaction. Part of it is relating to the broken-ness of so many of the characters in the movie. One of them, one that I have nothing in common with save for being male, is explaining the feeling of separation he has with the rest of the world. Someone says to him (paraphrasing, since I wasn't taking notes on dialog at the time, and there aren't any quotes on IMDb yet), "You have so much going for you." His response is to the effect of, "I know, it's all around me. But it stops at my skin."

It stops at my skin. Everything, it sometimes feels like. I know I have nothing to be so distressed over, and tons of things to be thankful for. But guess what? For whatever reason, be it bad brain chemistry or what, it still sucks to be in my skin a lot of the time. I have no excuse. And for the longest time, I had no real concept by which to express the feeling. The different shrinks I've worked with, I never quite had the right words to use. But now I do. It stops at my skin. I feel like I'm always watching, rarely if ever actually feeling. And it sucks. At one point, the same character is about to take his daily Zoloft, and instead impulsively pours the whole bottle in the toilet and flushes them away. I've thought about something like that countless times. I mean, I know on an intellectual level that the meds I take are crucial. Without them, I become completely unhinged. But they do more than keep me level. They numb me to a degree, as well. I mean, if you're going to level things off, then it stands to reason that in addition to preventing serious lows, you're also going to limit the highs as well.

If I thought that there were a real scene in NYC like what I saw on screen, and that I could somehow become a part of it, I'd be halfway there already. But it's not like there wasn't something similar in San Francisco. The issue isn't whether the entity is out there. The issue is how to overcome my own fears and self-defeating tendencies, and become a part of the human race. I'd say "rejoin the human race", but I feel like I've never let myself be a part of it in the first place. This isn't something I blame others for, and I don't necessarily blame myself for it. I mean, I never set out to distance myself from everyone around me. But I feel distanced. I've tried plenty of times to be part of the goings-on around me, and a few times I've done OK. But even when I've managed, it's felt like an act. Like a second skin pulled over mine temporarily.

I want to scream, but I don't know why or at what. I want to cry, long and hard, but I don't know what I want to cry about. I have the sountrack playing as I write this, and the song that corresponds to one of the two more emotional points in the movie is playing. I know that I could just let myself go right now, let the emotions come to the surface. I know that, on some level, I probably should do exactly that. But something holds me back. Like, maybe now isn't the time. (If not now, then when?) Or, I should have a clearer picture and understanding of what I'd be crying about. (And why can't I just cry for the sake of letting it run its course?) Maybe, deep down, I just don't want to be alone when it finally happens. (But, it seems like the only time it happens is when I'm alone.) But I don't know anyone I'd feel safe actually letting go around. That'll piss off my current housemate if she ever reads this. We have a long history, and she would like to think that I would be comfortable-enough with her to talk about anything. But I can't. For a number of reasons not relevant here (and some that are, but I don't feel like going into).

Shit, I don't know. This isn't nearly as coherent as it sounded in my head on the way home. Maybe I should have taken the laptop with me, and sat in the parking lot afterwards and written this when it was all still fresh. I know that I keep moving, expecting that the next place I go to will be the place where I finally fit in. When it's not the place that needs to let me fit in, it's me that needs to be willing to fit in whereever I land. I keep telling myself that it's all going to be different when I make it to London. But it wasn't that different when I got to Denver from Oklahoma, or when I got to San Francisco from Denver. I need to make the changes in myself, not expect them to be made for me by my (new) surroundings. I only hope I figure out what those changes are, and how to put them into motion, by the time I get to whereever I'm going.