Happily Ever After?

Happily ever afters are so unrealistic, I have always known that, and the older I get the more I believe it. And yet, I am a sucker for watching them, stories that jump hoops to give a happily ever after to its characters.

Hoops that in real life would break the necks of their jumpers and end the fairy-tale and the happily ever after bubble in a very realistic manner.

In one of my favourite movies, ‘Stuck in Love’ one of the characters who’s a writer poses a very important question, “I am not quite sure what compels us to continue playing make believe even after we grow up”.

Watching that scene always seriously makes me wonder about it, why? Why do we do that? Why do I as an adult love and will probably always love watching movies that have unrealistic endings where everything falls in place like a puzzle? That’s not right, its highly illogical and yet I still watch it anyways. I still laugh, cry and feel about it.

For me, it’s a from of escape. A way of searching for the magic I know I can’t find in my life, ever. Not because my life is an unhappy mess, but because my life is a life, a real one, with more downsides than I would actually wish for.

I love to sit and know that for once, things will actually be alright, they will turn out okay and I have absolutely nothing to do about it, because well, its not my own life, I don’t run it. And if things go down hell, so be it. It’s a representation of reality.

But the thing is, it still doesn’t make sense. When you face reality, learn the harsh truth it only makes sense that you bask in it. And it does happen.

I see adults every day, throughout my life, who belittle these movies, who scoff and moan about me forcing them to sit through one of those said movies and endure the unrealistic-ity of it all.

Adults who see how stupid and unrealistic those people jumping hoops and coming out alive is, they realise -just like I do- that it is not real, but they unlike myself, find it unbelievable, foolish and idiotic to make anyone think this could be real life.

When I was younger, it made me so angry, how they reacted to these scenes and scenarios, angry because they couldn’t spare a part in their minds for the impossible, for an imagination, for a what if.

I believed that what ifs were very important, I still do.

However, now that I am slightly older and wiser – I like to think – it is rather understandable why they felt that way, because despite my love for such scenarios and endings, I can see more and more how unrealistic they are. I can see them making me angry if I am having a bad day, or a bad life in some cases.

For now however, they still represent an excellent form of escapism, to a world where the problems are not mine, and the ending is mostly a happy one. 

End Scene of  'Stuck In Love' 2012.