Crash

I recently watched the mini series Keep Breathing on Netflix. I don’t usually watch series. They seduce me to binge watching and I don’t like that associated feeling of losing control over my time. But this one was worth it.

It’s a very touching, very subtle and truly artful take on the healing journey of a young woman, a high-achieving lawyer who finds herself all alone with herself and her childhood traumas in a huge wild forest after a plane crash.

I love the way her childhood memories are interwoven with her current struggle for survival, mirroring the struggle to make peace with her growing up as the child of a mentally ill artist mother.

There are breathtakingly beautiful cuts of scenery. And equally beautiful insights. There is one scene I particularly appreciated, and I think I can tell you without spoiling the series. It’s an inner dialogue she has with her father:

Father: You know why you became a lawyer?

Her: Because I like fighting?

Father: Because you like answers. Order. You didn’t have that much of it when growing up. You crave a world that’s black and white. But it’s not interested in what you want. It’s been chaos since before we got here. And it’ll be chaos long after we’re gone. And if there is order to any of this, it’s invisible to us.

It’s just one of many beautiful dialogues and lines, but this one especially struck a chord with me. It made me remember my own struggles with childhood trauma as well as my choice of profession.

I had become a diplomat because I wanted peace. Because I didn’t have that much of it growing up. I also eventually realized that what I sought was not to be found outside of myself. But only within.

I’m starting to suspect this applies no matter what you are looking for. Order. Peace. Love. Appreciation. Safety. Home.

It’s a difficult thing to realize. And even harder to stomach. Sometimes it takes as much as a full blown crash. A hard hitting of rock bottom. And only on the ruins of the artificially ordered (or peaceful) life you once painstakingly constructed to feel safe, do you manage to build a more truthful, healed version of yourself

And find your way home.

me

Feature image (c) Pixabay/CDD20