This is sort of crazy, but most of the content for this blog post was written on the go. Maybe I should explain. For my artist’s date last night I decided to go to see a movie playing in the cinema all by myself. Now I know that I watched a movie for my artist’s date last week, but this is different!! I was alone in a public place (next week I promise I’ll switch it up a little bit). I went to see “The Silver Linings Playbook,” and the theatre was absolutely packed. Here’s the funny part. I found a seat in the fourth row right in the middle. Some girls sat down to the left of me, but placed a coat as a placeholder on the seat directly beside me for a friend. The people who sat down to the left of me left a seat open for the person I’m sure they thought I was going to the movie with. The person on my left never showed, so in a packed theatre I was sitting with an empty seat on either side of me. Way to be conspicuous.

Anyway! I thoroughly enjoyed the movie. I thought that Bradley Cooper did a fantastic job and was utterly unrecognizable, but not because he changed his physical appearance in any way. It was his eyes. When you looked into his eyes, there was definitely a different energy about him. I believed he was this character because when I looked into his eyes I could just tell that everything he said he believed with every ounce of himself, and I thought”Wow”… that is acting. He wasn’t “playing” the part, he was that guy. I could probably say the same thing for Jennifer Lawrence, but I felt it most acutely with Cooper.

When it came to watching the film, I allowed myself to enter into a place of freedom that I rarely indulge in. I did not hold back my laughter, or my terror, or my sadness. I leaned forward in my chair during the intense moments. I cuffed my hands over my face in anticipation and fear at was taking place, and I let bursts of laughter explode out of my core when something that I thought was hilarious happened. Sometimes I was the only person who laughed, but I didn’t care. I thought it was funny, so therefore it was worth laughing at. This was my experience, and the way I was interpreting and experiencing the world in that moment, and that is worth something.

When the movie ended, I could barely hold back a smile as I walked out of the theatre alone. No one around for post-movie chat. Just me, and I LOVED it. I wanted to laugh because I felt like I had a secret. That I had discovered something precious and exciting. I left the theatre and walked down Pender street with a bit of a skip in my step, and a smile that went from ear to ear. My fingers itched to record my emotional state, because I worried that I might forget it. I knew that if I could live in this state and mindset forever, that anything was possible. Enough with the fluff. I realized that I was in complete control of my experience on this world.  Hear me out, because this was a huge realization for me. I wanted to go see “The Silver Linings Playbook,” so I went. I didn’t need anyone’s permission or co-operation to add this experience to my life, I just did it because I wanted to. As I walked towards the sky train I experienced a freedom and a power that I have never truly understood. My smile must have radiated off of me, because as I walked people nodded at me with curious eyes, and two young men called “Hola” to me as I walked by their pizzeria window. I greeted their hello with a smile that left them starring after me in wonder. I know this because I glanced back and they were still looking in my direction.

This happiness, this freedom, it radiates out of anyone who experiences it. Have you ever met someone that you just wanted to be around because their energy improved your own, and mad you feel better about yourself, and made you want to try harder and be better. The reverse it also true, but I don’t want to focus on that. I was only in this over the top happy state for about 20 minutes, but now that I know what it feels like I feel certain that I can go back. Also, once falling out of it I didn’t fall very far. I was on a different plain than before I reached that state, and so I would consider it a success. I talked before about Bradley Cooper’s energy being different. Well, after having this break-through moment I feel that my energy was different too.

What did I mean at the top of this article that I wrote it on the go? Well, after the movie I went to the airport to meet Greg (he was returning from his one week vacation home for his sister’s wedding – i would have gone too if it hadn’t been for school). While on the sky train I pulled out my phone and ferociously typed as much as I could. I wrote not because I needed to write (because I had written “write blog post” on my to-do list for the day), but because I HAD to write. My inner artist was bursting through my finger tips and I felt as if I might burst if I didn’t write. I was in complete alignment with who I was in that moment, and boy was I happy. I have, for the most part, already rewritten all the thoughts that I expressed on iphone on my way to the airport, but there are a few closing thoughts (from my phone) with which I would like to end this long blog post (thank you if you have stuck with me until the end).

“Walking along Pender street I suddenly became afraid that I wouldn’t feel like this tomorrow. Is this feeling real? Is feeling bad real? It’s all real! It’s up to you to decide what real is going to be for you. What is your reality? The only thing stopping it from bring everything that you hoped it would be is you.”

“I have to explain what’s going on in my mind right now. I feel that I have to capture this feeling before it’s gone. Is it crazy that really living is that thing, that feeling, that is so rare that I feel like I need to hold onto it with my whole might.”