Up until 2010, my favorite Disney princess was Ariel. From the first time I saw “The Little Mermaid” at age 8, all I wanted was to be a mermaid. Then I found myself in November 2010 at the movie theater at Green Hills Mall in Nashville with Mr. G, my new romance at the time, with whom I was already madly in love for almost the entire year. I hadn’t even heard of the movie we were about to see, but it had been his idea, and I could never say no to him. So “Tangled” began, and little did I know Rapunzel's first song would immediately tug at my heartstrings, and I would identify so much with her, even more so than I did with Ariel. These were the very lines: “Stuck in the same place I’ve always been. And I keep wondering, wondering, wondering and wondering WHEN WILL MY LIFE BEGIN?” There I was at age 27, barely minutes into this children’s movie, and I was fighting back my tears and hoping Mr. G hadn’t noticed.
You see, back then, I looked at my life, and it seemed pretty good. I never had to worry about financial difficulties or physical hardship. I’m in good health, I rarely fall sick, and I could eat a whole lot of junk for days and not worry about my weight. I’m musically talented, I write well, I’m got good grades without really putting in much effort, I’m intelligent enough to carry out a conversation of substance with. And I’ve done a few crazy things most of my ex-schoolmates would never dream of - like attempt an acting career in Singapore during a time when the arts scene didn’t quite exist, like packing my bags and flying alone to Nashville without knowing anyone there, like getting the whole study abroad experience.. Really, my life was pretty good and I had no reason to feel otherwise. But if I were to be really honest, deep down inside, for many many years there had always this nagging feeling I’d ignore, a feeling finally brought to my awareness with a simple question Rapunzel sang on my behalf:
WHEN WILL MY LIFE BEGIN?
3 days ago I read for the first time Shel Silverstein’s book “The Missing Piece Meets the Big O”, which begins: “The missing piece sat alone… waiting for someone to come along and take it somewhere.” And as I flipped the pages, I just kept seeing my own life spelled out and illustrated before my very eyes. And that’s when it hit me that in my world, my life only begins when Flynn Rider breaks into my tower and whisks me away. And by living this way, I’ve remained a lonely missing piece waiting and yearning for something or someone to make me whole. Notice that in the movie, Rapunzel was the one who hoisted herself out of the window and down to the grass below, which meant she could have always left whenever she wanted. What she really lacked was the courage to take that first step (because her “mother” had been filling her head with stories of how the world out there was bad, crazy and scary.. but that’s another blog post for another time). Hence Flynn became her way out, her ticket into the great big scary world. Her ticket into adventure.
Flynn Rider was the boy I “clicked with” when we met at a bus stop in Ang Mo Kio 13 years ago. We spent an entire night at Sentosa wandering the beach, singing our favourite songs, and sharing about our lives, falling for each other within days of our first meeting. (Ironically he’s probably the one most like Flynn because he borrowed a lot of money from me and some of his friends and never returned it). Flynn Rider was also the boy in 2009 who led me to the dance floor at a swing dance party during the last night of a Catholic students’ conference in Orlando, Florida, who continued to dance with me despite my clumsy attempts to keep up, the numerous times I trampled on his green shoes, and my nervous laughter because his face was so close to mine and he was damn cute. We sat at opposite ends on a sofa in the hotel lobby and chatted about anything and everything until the sun came up and we left Orlando and he went to Sao Paolo for a semester. He’s the one I met up with in New York and we spent a night wandering the city and the next evening with his crazy uncle who forgot he was supposed to leave for Ecuador and it was a mad rush to get the family packed and to their flight on time. Shortly before we saw “Tangled”, our whirlwind romance began, and he was adventurous and constantly wanted to explore new places, try new things… but he never brought me along. He started his own business at Coney Island, moved to Ecuador for a few months, even went to Fu Zhou to learn Mandarin, and I was never really a part of his adventures. But Flynn Rider showed up again a few months ago as the guy who came to see my first singer-songwriter showcase at an arts cafe in Singapore, who tried to catch the cockroaches we found in my car later that evening, who took a very-petrified me on his motorbike to get cockroach bait from a supermarket nearby at 3 am that same night, who lay beside me on random patch of grass and shared my love for emo songs until the sky lit up. The one who helped me figure out how to ride a bicycle at 1am on the quiet street outside his home. The one who’s lived in various places all over the world, who’s started a few businesses, the freelancer proficient in music, photography, dance - whose every day was different than the one before. These were the prominent Flynn Riders of my life, the ones I fell hard for and couldn’t forget for a while. The others before and in between consisted of some losers, some jerks and some decent guys who got their heart broken in the end… But one thing is for sure - they were all Flynn Riders at the beginning, until they all turned into Eugene Fitzgeralds (some faster than others), and it was time to let them go.
It became clear - I never saw Eugene for Eugene. I only saw Flynn Rider and the perks that came with that. Being whisked away on exciting adventures, having interesting memories to add to the bank of my rather mundane existence, getting close to something dangerous and feeling more alive as a result. Getting to ride on the back of a motorcycle because I don't dare to ride one myself (I can’t even get past my own fear of riding a bicycle!). Getting to be driven around in a fast flashy loud car because I don't know if I dared to race one myself. Getting to visit far away places and explore off-the-beaten paths with someone fearless because I was afraid I’d get lost, or mugged, or killed if I was alone. Because it’s easier and safer to get through a crazy scary world with someone who knows the way, than to figure it all out on my own.
Flynn Rider doesn’t exist. He’s not real (eh.. besides the fact that he’s a fictional character). He’s simply a made up identity to portray a certain image and reputation for Eugene to survive in his world, not very much different from the various personas we put on to get through our day. So waiting for Flynn to whisk me out of my tower, waiting for him to come along and take me somewhere - is all part of a self-created delusion, a fallacy I started to believe a long time ago that my life can only begin when Flynn appears. But history has shown that even when he does, he eventually and inevitably turns into Eugene anyway. And then what? For most of them I simply walk away and let it go. For the three big Flynns of my life, I've put them on a pedestal, waiting for them to become Flynn again, waiting for them to whisk me away, waiting for my life to begin again, waiting and waiting until it finally becomes painfully clear to me that in their eyes I’ve turned into a Eugene, and eventually, I see that they are nothing more than Eugenes too.
We can’t help who we’re attracted to, and my history has proven time and again that I will continue to hunt for Flynn Riders for a pretty long time.. unless something changes in a profound way. It goes to show that the heart of the matter lies not with the Flynn Riders or Eugene Fitzgeralds or Aladdins or Prince Erics or [insert other Disney characters or whatever name pleases you] of the world, but the real issue can only be resolved within ourselves. We get attracted to whatever it is we feel or think we need in order to feel whole and complete and that we’re someone worth loving. So what then needs to change such that I’d no longer need Flynn Riders to qualify my existence? What do I really need to let go of? Who do I need to become such that I wouldn’t need another person to fill the Flynn-shaped hole inside? If there’s one thing I’m finally understanding about self love, it’s about becoming the very thing you feel that you’re missing in your life, like the missing piece lifting and pulling itself and plopping and repeating that over and over again until it shaped itself into something whole and complete on its own.
So WHEN WILL MY LIFE BEGIN?
It begins when I end the hunt for Flynn Rider, and start becoming the equivalent of that for myself. Name pending and suggestions are welcomed.
- PenguinGirl learns about self love and loves herself.
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