Other Worlds

Books, TV shows, movies, songs ... they all provide us an escape. Like the infamous Stephen King quote says, "books are a uniquely portable magic." When your world is bright, find a show to match your spirit. When you're feeling down, listen to that song that understands your pain. When you can't connect with those around you, transform into that movie character who just gets it. When the thoughts in your brain won't quiet down, read a book that will silence all the noise. When your life becomes too much to handle, find refuge in the characters, lyrics, plot or scenes of a different world. Sometimes their fictitious lives have the ability to provide clarity within our reality. Other times, the mere pause of reality in order to step into these fictional worlds is all it takes to veer us back on track.

Have you ever noticed how tv shows almost always display a dream-worthy family dynamic and friend group? My binge-worthy, guilty pleasure shows right now are Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist (season 1 only - waiting for season 2 sometime early next year hopefully) and Parenthood (seasons 1 - 6 which finished airing in 2015). No, it is not a coincidence that Lauren Graham stars in both of them. I may be an over-the-top fan of Gilmore Girls and therefore, whenever I am not watching that show, I feel the need to watch something that has either Lorelei (Lauren Graham) or Rory (Alexis Bledel) cast in it ... oops! Anyway, these shows make you feel an instant connection with the characters and story lines, but to wish my life to be like theirs would be like wishing a balloon to be a flower. While the balloon is nice on its own and is made up of many parts, the flower has the ability to bloom into something beautiful with the help of other elements, such as the sun, water, soil, etc. So while my life is wonderful with the parts that make it up already, I will always watch these shows and wish that I could have a big family that would bicker and bother me but would come together and bond in the end, or a group of friends who would be there for me no matter what and who I could tell everything to and feel comfortable having them intertwined into every aspect of my life.

In Parenthood, the Bravermans have an enormous family unit – the parents had 4 children (who are now grown and whom the main story lines focus around) and each of them now have their own family. So this show displays the ups and the downs that they all go through, but the part that truly gets me is that they go through it all together. There hasn't been a single episode yet, although I have not finished the entire series, that the whole family has not come together to bond over some important moment. They support each other, motivate each other during their lows and celebrate each other during their highs. Similarly, in Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist, while a portion of the show centers on Zoey and her family (which merely consists of a mother, father and brother), everything else showcases her magnificent friends and coworkers-turned-friends. She can tell them just about anything, they help her through tough times with her family, they take her out to cheer her up and watch movies with her to calm her down, she can walk right into their apartments and feel at home while the same is true for them. It's the perfect world!

Yesterday, after my mind was racing thinking of everything I have going on in my life and everything that I should be doing but am putting off, I sat down to read my book. Over the weekend I had started reading All The Bright Places. I have heard it is such a good story, and since I recently finished The Kite Runner and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, I decided it was time for a softer, more heartwarming book. After cracking it open 3 times prior, I had only made it to page 104. However, after being sucked into the plot between Finch and Violet, I ended up consuming 200 pages in merely a few hours. While their lives may not be perfect or anything that I would want to dream my life to be, their story allowed me to leave behind my reality and dive, head first, into their world. By the time I climbed out of the book, the parts of my life that had been tugging at my mind all of a sudden didn't seem so bad after all.

We may not be perfect, our reality may be messy and anything but tv-worthy, however, it's the intermittent escapes, sometimes 30 minutes and sometimes 3 hours, that allow us to view our lives as whole. It is in these times, when we venture into other worlds, that we can become who we have dreamt of being or realize how grateful we are for what we already have.