My Life Is Not A Made For TV Movie

As a child, I visualized my life as a movie.

Growing up, this idea offered me a sense of community and comfort. It was as if I was providing some sort of entertainment to a supportive and captive unseen audience. An audience that was anticipating my each move, and fixated on my every detail. As I inched closer to adolescence, I found this mentality to become an escapist tactic, acting as a buffer to the outside forces raining down on me, forces that proved time and time again to exist far outside of my control.

This movie mentality closely aligns with my affinity for storytelling. I have been a storyteller as long as I can remember. Perhaps this is why I have never been drawn to watching movies. I’ve been far too involved with carrying out my own cinematic display, utilizing my photographic memory to replay select scenes when I am ready to view them with a wider viewpoint.

Still, on the other side of each and every one of life’s dramatic, movie moments, from the most powerful, drawn out waves of silence, to the awkward, fumbling scene changes, all the way to the heart wrenching, abrupt twists of fate, exists reality. This reality is a lot to chew on, and even more to swallow and attempt to digest.

It is here you will find that there is no background music to fade in and save you, that will swoop down and lend a helping hand to soften the blow or glamorize your experiences. Each scene comes and goes in a momentary flash, yet potentially holds the power to make or break you, if you choose to let it.

Despite the frequency of these movie-like moments, I must often remind myself that my life is not a made for TV movie. My life is not any sort of movie for that matter—not a short film, certainly not a full-length feature, not a prequel, not a sequel and not even an unreleased documentary.

My life is an infinite story.

In this story there are no pauses, no rewinds and no fast forwards. Just pages that keep turning.