Myles, Noah, and I are watching Up. They have seen Up already with my mom, but Debbie is out of town, it’s a boys’ weekend, and they want to do something special. They want the three of us to go to a movie theater and see Up together.
Ellie, the wife of Carl, the old man protagonist in the movie, dies almost immediately because that’s what they do in kids’ movies: kill moms, or wives, sometimes dads, and while this usually doesn’t affect me very much at all, Ellie dying absolutely destroys me.
I think this is partly because of what Ellie had been, this terribly adventurous kid with these terribly big plans to explore the world, versus what she had become, an old woman who hadn’t done any of that. Ultimately, she found herself happy, but trapped, wanting something more, but forced to settle for less.
Then she goes and dies, happy, but still trapped, and that’s too much for me to bear.
This theme is always bound to kill me, because I inevitably think about my father. He was an artist who never felt he got his due and endlessly felt trapped by his inability to figure this out. The decisions he made, and did not make, including, leaving New York City and Washington, D.C., moving to the small town I grew-up in, parenting, and on and on.
“Are you crying?” Myles says, partly astonished and partly full of glee.
“You shouldn’t talk during the movie,” I say, quickly, so I don’t have to answer him, or tell him I’m not crying, because reflexively that’s what I do, or want to do anyway.
I am not embarrassed, though, really. Still, I don’t respond.
“You are,” he says. “Awesome.”
