P.S. Keep Reaching For Your Dreams

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"Dear Gerry, you said you wanted me to fall in love again, and maybe one day I will. But there are all kinds of love out there. This is my one and only life. And it's a great and terrible and short and endless thing, and none of us come out of it alive..." ~ From the movie P.S. I Love You

There's nothing like meeting up with friends and sitting down for a movie night... even on a school night. So, with our bowl of yogurt covered raisins and glasses of water in hand, my friends and I squished eagerly on the couch and watched P.S. I Love You last night. As you can imagine, for those who have seen this movie, there were tears and many exclamations of "awe" throughout the film. As the credits started, one of the girls who had just viewed the movie for the first time said, "Well that stinks. She never fell in love with someone new! What a horrible ending!" Now, I have seen this movie probably ten times, yet this was the first time that it occurred to me that Holly (the main character) never did find a replacement man. Not very romantic, I suppose. Yet, why was I still so satisfied with the ending?

This really started shifting the gears in my rusty summer-dulled brain. In the romance genre, we are so used to what I would dare call the "cheesy princess love syndrome." Girl faces some problem or obstacle, Prince Charming shows up, and suddenly everything is okay and they ride off into the sunset. Or vice versa. In any case, there is always a "happily ever after." Yet, the typical description of the modern "happily ever after" includes some kind of true love between two people that is expressed in a way that is so unbelievable as to be believable because we all wish it to be reality. Hey, I love my Disney movies just as much as the next person, but at some point one has to acknowledge that those endings either don't exist in our world, they are very, very rare, or they do exist but in some other happier dimension. P.S. I Love You gives the audience an ending that everyone can relate to (whether they like it or not) because there is a reality to it. It is an ending that is rarely ever seen in romantic movies. She doesn't fall in love with another person, but as I started thinking about it, she does fall in love with something else entirely.

This is what I love about storytelling. I love finding themes or messages in books, movies, poems... you name it. I hope that someday I will have accomplished such a feat in my own work. Anyway, at one point during the movie, Holly states that, "... there are all kinds of love out there." It is so true. In the end, she fell in love with designing shoes. She had a passion and a direction in life that she discovered on her own (or you may believe with the help of her dead husband). Holly made it through all the obstacles of losing her husband, her job, even her friends and she didn't need a Prince Charming to do it. Okay, so maybe she thought Gerry (her deceased husband) helped her, but really it took her strength and determination to direct her life towards a goal.

This is such an encouraging idea. We are all pushing forward through life trying to reach our passions, our loves, our goals. Some yearn to direct, or produce, or edit, or even act (yay!). Others yearn to do biology research, or find a cure for cancer, or run a theatre company. Whatever it may be, we are all on a path that requires sweat, blood, tears and most of all passion. The end of P.S. I Love You showed me that no matter how bleak the future may seem or how big the obstacles appear, if we just keep pushing onward, someday we will find love. Not in the form of another person per say, but maybe in the form of success in our dreams, or contentment in how we have achieved some of our goals.

So good luck to students everywhere starting a new year in school! I hope you can persevere like Holly as you journey to reach your own version of a true "happily ever after," whatever that may be. Push down mountains and swim across oceans because when the road seems impossible is when we find the strength to find the possibility in it! I know I will never stop dreaming and pushing forward.
~ Amber Capogrossi

College is a like a Roller Coaster

When I began college in  Fall of 2011, I heard from many older friends that College was similar to riding a Roller Coaster. After completing my freshmen year, I realized what they were talking about. To give evidence to their comparison, I have for you a roller coaster from Six Flags Magic Mountain in Santa Clarita, California. X2 or XTREME 2 is, in my opinion, the craziest and most entertaining ride at the park. Not only do you began the ride going up backwards, but on the first drop of 90 degrees you are facing the ground beneath you. The seats rotate 360 degrees and near the end of the ride you are surprised with spitting flames.

I chose this ride because it is not only the most thrilling, but also because it has a number of different similarities to college that I found interesting. For starters, the beginning of the ride begins backwards as how most freshmen begin college. Since riders are backwards, they have no idea where they are going. This could compare to freshmen beginning college because most freshmen enter college not knowing exactly where they are headed. Some begin their major and switch, while others begin exploring their options, and eventually decide where they want to end up.

The next aspect of the ride as riders facing the ground beneath them at a 90 degree angle. As with most college students, this would compare to the fact that once students choose their major, it starts with a straight path or "faces" you to the path of your choice. With the edition of loops, 360 degree rotations and fire, these are most commonly compared to as the obstacles and struggles that come with school. With hours and hours of studying and gaining the experience, following your path through college will bring you loops, rotations, and make you tired and stressed to the point where you will wish you could spit fire, in a metaphorical term.

However, the ride always comes to an end as this would symbolize your graduation. What makes this similarity interesting is the ride finishes as it began with the passengers riding backwards. I came to the conclusion that this metaphor could describe how once you graduate from school, it isn't always easy to find a job. Again people do not know where they are headed in life prior to graduation and find themselves trying to find the path that best fits them and the life they want.