When Will My Life Begin, a very personal entry
Or in other words, why my Tumblr went dark for a couple months.
This will be an incredible block of text which I will discreetly put in a cut…. It is not often that I can bare my feelings on my tumblr but this needs to be addressed. I haven’t been posting in here at all for one very important reason:
I didn’t and absolutely could NOT allow myself to see spoilers on Tangled.
And I didn’t have the heart to unfollow the blogs who talk about it so often. And it may seem like a frivolous thing to most of you, but this movie means SO MUCH to me. And this probably needs a better explanation which begins… now.
For the rest of the world, Tangled showed around November last year. I live in the Philippines and I only had the chance to see it early February. I have been waiting to see this movie for years now. Ever since it was still in development, I saved pictures of concept art, read up on every article, and kept myself updated every time a new trailer came out. I gobbled everything up like a greedy child.
But tumblr has this habit of posting screencaps and things, after discreetly waiting for a week or two. And Tangled wasn’t going to show in my country until a few months after the first theater debut. I was crafty and dodged updates on my dash until December… but I had the misfortune of seeing some of the lantern screencaps without knowing the context.
Needless to say, I was a bit devastated and retreated out of my blog for a long while.
This movie means a lot to me for several reasons.
I grew up in a very conservative family, in a country where my parents find it unsafe for me to get around. I was never let outside without a chaperon till highschool had set in. Our school didn’t even have field trips because they found everything too dangerous for us. Our pasty complexions and thin slitted eyes were like glaring signs that screamed “kidnap me” (or so the adults seemed to think). I was probably into art because it was the only place that allowed me to escape. I lived vicariously through what I drew, what I read in books, and what I saw on TV.
And then college set in, and everything was this insane overwhelming intellectual and emotional awakening. And I didn’t know that learning was this amazing and that traveling would be this fun or that you get to meet people who would make you feel more like yourself. And I cannot tell you, how much I cried just watching this unfolding right in front of me on screen. To some it may seem like too much self projection, but I just can’t help but feel so incredibly connected with Rapunzel. It was so…. ACCURATE that it kind of tore me apart. I was seeing myself and it rattled me to the core.
So when she says… “I’ve been looking out the window for 18 years, dreaming about what it would feel like when I see those lights in the sky. What if it’s not everything that I dreamed it would be?…. And what if it is?”
“That’s the good part I guess… You get to go find a new dream.”
I just broke down into a mess of sobs.
I’ve been working so hard applying back into school- knowing with all my heart that this is the right path to take. I’ve poured my heart out trying to make an art career work, knowing that I can take the gamble if I prepare myself with a powerful hand.
Currently, I am pleased to say that I have been accepted into the foreign school where I wanted to take a second undergrad in Illustration. But… I am still earning and fighting very very hard to get a substantial scholarship. My parents can’t afford it. And it’s a career decision that affects everyone. And I’ve been gripped by so much fear… what if it doesn’t happen? What if it doesn’t work out? What if it does and it’s not what I thought it would be? And what if it is?
Seeing Tangled, made me believe. And I know that there are cynics out there that scream that Disney is peddling false hopes…. but as a great man once said, there has never been anything false about hope. It all just happened at the time when I needed it the most. And I am so happy that my movie experience was so… perfect.
I’ve been looking out of a window (and occasionally setting a foot out the door) for 23 years… and lately… I’ve found more courage than I could ever hope to have. And considering my situation, I’m going to need every ounce of it, because I want too much so desperately.
Because whenever I draw.. whenever I make my art… I know that this is where I’m meant to be.
