We took our kids to see Inside Out on Father's day. It seemed like a great family activity, and a way to celebrate the Daddy who does so much for us. We are all happiest, it seems, at the movie theater. With popcorn and sugary drinks, with bags of Skittles passed down the row, with the lights dimmed and the magic of Tinseltown at work in front of us. I was excited, of course, because Pixar movies never disappoint, with their tight stories, gorgeous animation, and that amazing ability to delight both children and their parents. But I was also feeling nervous. I had done a little research the week before, listening to the director, Pete Docter, on Fresh Air with Terri Gross. It was fascinating to hear how the film's writers and animators had worked out the story, learned about the functions of the brain, and chosen the actors to voice the characters. There was a key element to the movie that I knew would hit a little too close to home, though. The movie shows the emotional life of Riley, an 11year old girl who has just moved across the country with her parents. Pete Docter shared that this was chosen as the catalyst for the Emotions to get out of whack because his family had moved when he was 11. But it's more than Riley's story and Pete Docter's story; it is also my story.
When I was 11, just finishing the fifth grade, my parents decided to move from my hometown of Dallas, Texas to Ohio. In fact, I missed the last day of school to help load our Ryder moving truck, and we spent the night as a family at motel near the highway in order to get an early start in the morning and try to miss the Dallas rush hour. I even lost my last baby tooth during our move. In Texas, I was a basketball player, a native well-versed in the state's history, a Cowboys fan, occasionally too loud, occasionally too aggressive. I loved school and my teachers, I knew every inch of my neighborhood, from the well-worn paths where my sister and I rode our bikes to the cavernous stormwater pipes that ran under our street. I had friends and I was confident. And then we moved, and much of that changed.
It wasn't until I watched Inside Out this past summer that I could finally articulate what that move was like for me. There it was, playing out on the giant screen, the way everything around changes while everything inside is changing too. For me, growing up felt like a severing of myself. Childhood was in Texas and adolescence was in Ohio. I imagine that people who don't move in the middle of their young lives probably have a stronger feeling of integration, that the places where you have your first kiss or your first job are the same places where you used to play with your friends or shop with your parents. Just like Riley, I struggled to fit in at my new school, to be excited about the changes in my life. And just like Riley, I lost pieces of myself along the way. The friends I left behind disappeared like Bing Bong in the Memory Dump. Basketball was different, and within a few years I switched from being an athlete to being a band geek. I lost some of that confidence too, the feeling of belonging, of being home. It took many years, and a few more moves, for me to find that again.
Then there is the final lesson of Inside Out, the realization that all of one's feelings have merit and purpose, and that Sadness is necessary to move forward. It felt like I was sad for a full year, overwhelmed and confused and struggling. I longed to go back, to return to the Lone Star state and my real life. But that wasn't happening. Yet it was in that sad state that a new self was born. I became the sapling of the woman I am today, sarcastic and pensive and loyal and silly. I made new friends, developed new hobbies, found new places to ride my bike and new ways to express myself. It wasn't easy, but probably no one feels like it is easy to get older. And it created something special inside me, a sense of compassion and tenderness towards girls entering 6th grade and experiencing all those changes.
It's amazing how it all works out, isn't it? How the places where you feel the most pain and challenge become the places where you are most able to help others, how the worst times lead to the best times. And how home turns out not to be the place you left, but the place where you arrive.
