Nothing is Easy (+ Santa Barbara Roll #2)
I’ve recently gotten into the Netflix series Easy. It’s shot in Chicago and focuses on relationships, sexuality, and regular human experiences. This is why I love it so much. It almost feels documentary-like in that these are regular “people” going through everyday life, doing their best to navigate it.
The cast is amazing, with both actors I recognize and a slew of others I’ve never seen before. Creator/director Joe Swanberg gives the actors some general information about their characters and the motivation in the scene, but other than that, it’s a largely improvised style of story development and filming.
In one episode there is an exchange between two women. Sophie is in her mid 30’s and has just gone through a breakup and is contemplating moving to another city for a job. And Annabelle, in her 50’s, is single and contemplating her own career and relationship choices over the years. Sophie explains to Annabelle how unsure she is about the breakup and moving. Annabelle looks at her like the world is Sophie’s oyster. Annabelle still sees Sophie as young, with endless possibilities, and she says as much to Sophie. This exchange in the scene, at a bar over drinks that only lasts a couple minutes, made me think about relativity. What Sophie was going through was important and difficult; the depth of her anxiety and unrest was relative to where she was in life and what she wanted from life. So while Annabelle was 20+ years in the future and could tell Sophie not to worry, that things would work out, Sophie, in present day, can’t truly comprehend that.
Although it wasn’t explored and discussed in the episode, I’m sure Sophie probably looked at Annabelle like she had everything figured out, while Annabelle felt just as out of control as Sophie does. This is how I feel in life right now, particularly when it comes to talking to others about my desire for a relationship and children. People tell me that “the right one will come along,” that I’m “young and have so much time to have children.” But in this very moment, which is all we truly have, I feel miles away from any of that. I feel faithless in the idea that I will one day marry and have children of my own within the context of a “normal family.”
Nothing in life is easy, and the things that are important, that cause anxiety and unrest, that make us happy and invigorate us - they all are constantly shifting and changing. I’m working on doing my best to stay present, to feel it all. Years ago my mom told me, during the most difficult time for our family as my parents divorced, that if you worry about something and it doesn’t come to fruition, you’ve worried for nothing. And if you worry about it and it does come true, well then you’ve lived it twice over. I am choosing to move through emotion, to feel it, but to not let it control me or dictate my every move, especially the feelings of fear and insecurity.
