If you know me, you know that I love movies. I want to make movies so yeah, I love them. I enjoy superhero movies, horror, psychological thriller, the occasional romance and yes, sometimes, I watch really trashy movies that only ever come on Syfy at like two in the morning. (I’ve seen every Sharknado and every Tremors movie. Don’t judge me.) It all depends on my mood. And like all people, or like most people, I love Disney and Pixar. Although now I suppose it’s DisneyPixar since Disney is our overlord and owns everything. My favorite Disney movie is Mulan. Now when it comes to Pixar, that’s more difficult because they have some incredible movies. And the thing with Pixar is that their movies always have some deeper meaning. Some hidden depth in them. That’s why I love them. (Even if they do have the tendency of making me cry.)

Take the movie Inside Out for example. I didn’t expect for it to make me cry and have a deeper meaning than it did. Inside Out follows a girl named Riley who moves with her parents. She struggles to adjust to the move and make new friends. It also follows the emotions Riley is going through. Those emotions are Joy, Sadness, Anger, Disgust, and Fear. For Riley, Joy runs the show. For Riley’s mom, Sadness runs the show. For Riley’s dad, Anger runs the show. And it really makes you think. What emotion runs the show for you? I think for me, like Riley, it would be Joy. I’m always smiling and then when I don’t smile it’s instantly “What’s wrong, Keely?” The line that stuck with me and made me bawl like a baby was right after Riley ran away. She tells her parents:

“ I… I know you don’t want me to, but… I miss home. I miss Minnesota. You need me to be happy, but I want my old friends, and my hockey team. I wanna go home. Please don’t be mad.”

Riley, Inside Out

As someone who moved all the time growing up, I related to this so much. I hated moving. Especially when we moved from Broken Arrow to Tulsa after eighth grade. Suddenly, I was a new freshmen and I had no friends. My friends and I talked about how excited we were about high school. Then suddenly, I was at a new school. It really sucked. Yes, I made friends but I still missed my friends from before. Then we moved back to Broken Arrow before my junior year, suddenly the friends I had in middle school had moved on without me, and it hurt.

Inside Out really made you think about emotions and the brain and how does it work? Here’s a review of Inside Out.

I recently watched Soul. It follows a man, Joe who is a middle-school band teacher. His passion is jazz and the piano. After finally getting a big break, Joe unfortunately has an accident and ends up in a coma. He finds himself in another realm where there are souls who haven’t been born yet. He meets one soul, 22, voiced by the wonderful Tina Fey, who has been there the longest. Joe tries to get 22 to find her spark and in the end he does. It’s a beautiful movie with a great meaning.

Joe spends his life always focused on his music and his passion, which is not a bad thing, but he forgets to live. In the end, it’s 22 who helps him to live. Yes, he helps her to not be afraid of coming to Earth and living, but through 22, Joe realizes that he’s spent so much of his life thinking about the next step. The next move so he could do what he always wanted, be a jazz player, that he didn’t enjoy life. He wasn’t live. He lost that spark. And 22 helped him to find it. (For more thoughts on Soul, check out “19 Moments In The Movie ‘Soul’ That Will Tug Your Heart Strings” and “29 Fan Reactions to Disney+’s ‘Soul’ That Will Give You All the Feels”

My favorite quote when one of Jerry’s asks Joe “How are you going to spend your life?” And Joe says:

“I’m not sure. But I do know I’m going to live every minute of it.”

Joe, Soul

And it got me to thinking. Some deep thinking.

Lately, I’ve been burned out. I’m taking the next two semesters off because I ran through undergrad with no break. And I feel like I did college all wrong. I was so focused on getting good grades and keeping my scholarships that I didn’t really make friends in undergrad. I didn’t attend games or events. It was always school, school, school. Did I live? No. I simply existed. I think that’s what a lot of us do. We simply exist. We go through the motions. Maybe we shouldn’t. Maybe we need to stop focusing on the big ten year plan and just focus on living.

I think that’s my problem. I keep focusing on the next step rather than enjoying the step I’m in. Enjoying the now rather than think about the later. So that’s what I’m going to try to do. Enjoy the now and not think about the later. Not stress about the next step or what happens next. Otherwise, I’m going to miss out on a lot of things because I’m so focused on the future that I can’t see the present right in front of me. It might save me a lot of grief and headache.

-K