Rewatching Interstellar & Realizations
I first watched Interstellar around age 10 in 2014.
Of course, I didn't fully understand the emotional impact of it. I thought it was a cool space movie, and I LOVED the music. The soundtrack was on repeat for a long while.
I'd re-watched it with my family a year or two ago on a holiday. I still loved the movie. I understood that the story was really about love and survival, about not giving up, but for some reason it didn't really stick in my mind. Now I realize it was because I was too depressed to really feel the message.
It was only 3 days ago that I did a rewatch by myself that I realized how much this movie resonated with me.
I've been through so much shit the past few years. I was depressed, miserable, and failed my junior year of college due to my deteriorating mental health. I wanted to give up so many times. I really only fought because I didn't want to disappoint the people I loved.
This movie quite literally represents the conflict I had in my head as I struggled to even get out of bed. One part of me always wanted to give up, to just wither away without hope for anything better. The other wanted to keep going because of love for my family and friends. I hated the thought of them suffering. It was a constant battle against the feeling that I was never going to get better, that I was just destined to be depressed forever.
Now I'm taking bipolar meds. I'm feeling a lot better. I'm graduating my 5th year of college after failing that entire year due to my depression.
I finally see that I didn't give in to the pain or the hopelessness like many in the movie did. Love for others was the only thing keeping me going.
Things didn't go as planned, and there were obstacles along the way. But I was, without realizing it, fighting for a better future for myself because of love. It just didn't feel like it at the time.
The movie really spoke to me, and of course I cried. I cried writing this post, too.
Interstellar will now always be in my top movies of all time. Its just a beautiful tale about being human, and fighting against hopelessness.