#this is where i've been since abt december. this is Literally why i wasn't posting for a while LMAOOOOO

[jack-kellys]

this feels like a coming out post. and not just for darry

[nopefer-art-tu]

OH MY GOD I CANT BELIEVE I ALMOST MISSED POSTING ABT BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN'S ANNIVERSARY???? im gonna get mushy here so if yall wanna skip this go for it i wont hold it against you lol but this movie means a lot to me (if u cant tell) and id just kinda like to share a little bit abt why

I remember when I first saw Brokeback, I'd been either a junior or senior in high school, and I had watched it with my ex. I literally have no clue how we got to watching it or who proposed we watch it in the first place, but I remember that even back then I had been incredibly moved by the story.

Cut to 5-6 years later, and in January of this year I'd been in the midst of a really, super dark depression thanks to some health issues that I've been dealing w for awhile now. It made it so that on top of COVID, I wasn't rly getting out of the house for anything but school, and even then doing that took a really big toll on my anxiety. So basically, from the time that the 2021 winter semester had ended for me in early December, to when school started back up again for the spring in late January, I hadn't left the house at all.

In mid January, like a week before school started back up for me, I was scrolling through Hulu, bored out of my mind and also trying to find something to occupy my time and thoughts w bc I'd been going stir crazy, and I saw that Brokeback had been listed again. I kinda lingered on it because I remember phil (@/senditothemoonn) had watched it like a month or two before and she had started talking abt it in our group chat and posting quotes abt it and stuff, and it had been awhile since I'd seen it so I was like hey! What the hell! Lets give it a watch, its time I watch it again anyways.

And like. Something happened to the world for me after that viewing. It was like it had blown apart, and when it came back together it was completelty rearranged for me.

I'm not entirely sure why that time around the movie has such a deep, DEEP impact on me when I had seen it before, and had been very touched by it back then. I think its partly that a. I never used to watch movies with subtitles, and so before I realized that I probably have issues with the way my mind processes sound, a lot of movie dialogue just kinda. Didn't get internalized by me for some reason? Even now when I rewatch old faves that I haven't seen with subtitles, I'm always astounded by what the hell theyre saying because I had never rly picked up on it before, lol.

And like...I mean if you've seen the movie then you already know this, but their accents and dialect are kinda hard to get through. ESPECIALLY when it comes to Heath as Ennis. Which isn't in any way a jab at him, I think every part of his performance is super thoughtful and well-crafted and every acting choice he makes serves the character in only positive ways. But when you already have issues processing audio, and when you have a character who's jaw is perpetually cleched so tight that the words literally have to "fight" their way out of his mouth, its just like. Not the best combination lol.

And so this time around when I saw the movie, I saw it with subtitles and it opened up a new dimension of the film to me. Honest to God, the first time I watched the movie, I had no idea that the shirts at the end were so signifigant because Jack had stolen Ennis'. I guess the first time I saw it, I didn't catch the part where Ennis talks about having left his damn shirt up there, and Jack just kinda shrugs it off and changes the subject. When I saw that moment this time, it didn't really strike me as anything important until the movie got to the end and you realize that Jack had kept the shirts all those long 20 years and UGH. I literally remember screaming with tears in my eyes, thats what happened to the shirt! There they are! And then when I saw that Ennis had put his shirt over Jack's to hang together on his closet door for the rest of his life? Dead. Dead, I was literally stabbed in the heart 50 million times and killed dead. I'd never made those connections before and now that I had I like. got it, yanno? I got why this was an oscar winner, and why people were sk devastated by its best picture loss. Not that I hadn't before, but it just hit so much harder.

So yeah, the subtitles probably had a lot to do w why its stayed lingering in my mind for a long while, but I also think its because in a few ways it kind of spoke to me and made me think about my health issues and the self-imposed quarantine that I'd put myself through for the better part of a year at that point.

To me, the whole story is about regret, about not taking the chances we have while we have them and having to learn to live with knowledge of the things we didn't let ourselves do and the memories we didn't let ourselves make.

I hadn't seen a lot of my family for awhile at that point because I just didn't want to be out of my house, and its only been recently that I realized how much life I've missed out on living for a good year and a half-ish or so. And like yeah, I have a reason, my health issues and super aggressive anxiety have kinda put me through the ringer. But I dunno like. I kind of empathized and related to Ennis' character in a really odd way, because he also let his fear control what he did and especially what he did not do, and for that, he ended up living a half-life and missed his chance of getting to spend his time with the person he loved the most.

For me, the fear of regret is one of my biggest motivators in doing literally anything. I've realized I don't want to end up like Ennis, isolating myself from my loved ones and missing out on the chance for love and life because of some issues I have. And I mean its not like they're not real issues. Just like the fears that motivated Ennis' actions, theyre very real concerns. But since seeing the movie, I've been a lot more proactive about seeing doctors and trying to get this shit fixed up, because I don't want to end up wasting my life away. I wanna find my Jack, and I wanna be happy, and I wanna live.

Anyways. Happy 17th birthday to my favorite movie in the world <3