Leave Out All the Rest
The rest is confetti.
“Forgiveness is warm. Like a tear on a cheek. Think of that and of me when you stand in the rain. I loved you completely. And you loved me the same. That's all. The rest is confetti.”
— Victoria Pedretti as Nell Crain in The Haunting of Hill House by Mike Flanagan.
In my very first entry here in Jiggy's Journal, I wrapped things up by briefly touching on being a lonely kid who felt like nobody was interested in befriending. I think this might be my first memory where I felt a sense of social anxiety. My medical records state that I still currently suffer from a “generalized anxiety,” so the idea that it started manifesting as early as kindergarten kinda tracks.
Although the feeling of not making friends eventually went away, I still spent massive amounts of time as a teen and young adult feeling worried and concerned about what other people thought of me. Even though I am, without question, a nerd at heart, I wasted so many of my younger years trying to mold myself into whatever my version of being “likeable” was. I bought and wore the name-brand clothes, I listened to the music that was popular at the time, and I hung out with people who drank and smoked weed! (I'll give you a minute to clutch your pearls and collect yourself now.) But I would come home from being out with my so-called friends, and instead of feeling the joy and exhilaration that friendship and a hoppin' nightlife are supposed to provide, I would sometimes cry myself to sleep instead. I would wake up with massive headaches, not from hangovers, but from dehydration. I hated trying to keep everybody but myself happy. Then one day, I woke up with that dehydration headache from crying the night before, and it was literally like someone flipped a switch in my brain.
I didn't care anymore.
Which isn't to say that I didn't care about my life or my friends and family anymore. I'm an introvert, but I have still always loved meeting new people, chatting and being social, and my close friends and family are the most important thing to me. But I think I was finally developing the tougher skin that I probably should have started out with. I was starting to believe that “quality is better than quantity.” I can't please everyone I ever meet. There are going to be people who don't like me. There will be people who are friendly but not your friend. There are going to be people who will both enter and exit your life. And the only person who can best take care of you and your needs is yourself. And that's okay. I don't want to go get turnt or do things for “the ‘Gram” and a billion followers anymore. I've even recently noticed that I've been having far more fun on my Twitch streams since I stopped stressing myself out over the numbers. Yes, social media and creating content on the web are essentially numbers games or popularity contests, but I don't think fate or the universe or something is going to let it just happen for someone who wants it too bad. Relax. Just find your zen.
The problem I've been facing in recent years, however, is that I've let the “I-don't-care-what-you-think-of-me” attitude snowball into letting myself match people's energy. And frankly, that's not a great way to handle your differences with people who might already be having a bad day. And look, I still don't care what most strangers on this rock think of me. But I do care what the people I love think of me, and ultimately, getting labeled as “the mean one” was not on my bucket list. So I've been trying to remedy things by trying to filter my thoughts a little more, maybe make them sound a little less venomous. I'm trying to remember that kindness makes a world of difference. And that I still love them even when I want to punch them in the throat.
I have made a lot of social posts regarding how fun my streams have been since I stopped obsessing over follower and viewer counts. Just a few hours ago, I wrote another one in which I paraphrased a quote from The Haunting of Hill House. That same quote about life's moments just being confetti is prominently featured at the top of this post. I'm not sure what initially made me think of it and then use it, but after I did, I wanted to see if director/producer Mike Flanagan had explained what exactly it was that he meant when he wrote that line for Nell. And boy, did I luck out! Mike explained his entire thought process at length in a post over on his Tumblr blog. At the end of his post, he beautifully explains the following:
“And it's about how, outside of our love for each other, the rest is just... well, it's fleeting. It's colorful. It's overwhelming. It's blinding. It's dancing. And, if we look at it right, it's beautiful. But it's also light. It's tinsel. It flits and dances and falls and fades, it's as light as air.
The rest is the stuff that falls around us, and flits away into nothing.
It's the love that stays.”
— Mike Flanagan on his Tumblr blog.
And it's the truth. In the grand scheme of things, the people that I love are what matter the most. We always forget how influential our lives are to others. I still have habits that rubbed off on me from my mother, who has been gone for nearly 25 years now. In a way, her knowledge, her stories, her legacy, and her impact continue and live on through those of us who remember her. She was my mother. I love her completely, and she loved me the same. I can remember her hugging me close and apologizing for our trip to Disney World getting ruined by the torrential rain that had us completely soaked, I can remember the hand-drawn maps she made to guide her way through dungeons in the original Legend of Zelda video game, and I can remember the awesome muffins she used to bake from mixes she got at Sam's Club. But that's all the confetti. The brilliant and colorful but fleeting moments of my life that were shared with hers.
As I get older, I just hope that my family will feel the same way about me. Sometimes I can get upset with them. But while I hope they'll remember plenty of shiny and sparkly confetti that I've sprinkled all over their lives, I hope it's the love that stays.