I’m not exactly sure how old I was the first time I watched ‘The Beach’. What I do remember is the dark of the classroom we watched it in, the feeling of exhilaration at not having class and the way the film made me feel, even that very first time.
Excited, but nostalgic… for a life not yet lived.
Many of my memories have gone hazy over the years, faded by time and replaced by other, more important, perhaps more relevant ones, but not this one.
Over a decade later, I still remember the musty smell of the room, the cover of the VHS tape my teacher brought the movie in and the way I knew, even then, that the wanderlust bug had bitten.
I wanted to escape just like Richard had.
I’ve watched and rewatched the movie several times since and the memories attached are just as vivid.
What stuck with me most about ‘The Beach’ was not the yearning of my inner escapist or how nothing is ever what it seems to be or even the cinematic shark attack that saw me squeezing my eyes shut and whispering to my friend next to me to “tell me when it’s over”.
The scene that haunts me, quietly, to this day, is one right at the end.
Post-Beach Richard has gone back to civilisation and sits in an internet café. He opens his email to a photo captioned ‘Parallel Universe’, signed with love from Francoise.
I’ve thought about parallel universes a lot since.
At 16 on the banks of the Orange River on a cold, still blue-lit morning, looking out at the tents and sleeping bags of everyone in my grade, surrounded by people but feeling utterly alone.
At 22, when friends left me stranded sans phone, house keys or money on a night out.
Now at 26, when life keeps throwing so many curve balls at me that it’s almost comical.
Somehow, at some point, I must have slipped into one of the parallel universes I have found myself in over the years.
A parallel universe where I’m called self-absorbed by a stranger on the internet because I write about myself in this very column… about me.
A parallel universe where comments from strangers, also on the internet, about my weight and my looks and my personality have me feeling unattractive, uncomfortable in my skin and well… unliked.
A parallel universe where October, my favourite month… kinda sucks.
This parallel universe is currently my reality and for the most part, I’m tired, overwhelmed and terrified.
But I am also ready.
To learn and unlearn. To dig the rot out with my bare hands. And learn to love myself in a steadier, kinder, more palpable way.
By starving the trolls. And feeding my joy instead.
