The Matrix Has Me.
I just put in my VHS copy of The Matrix. The only copy I have. Tell me I'm not old-school. Go ahead. I still have my Atari console and the games. The Pong console, too.
Anyway, I was just thinking that it's so funny-weird how certain movies/songs/places bring back such clear memories. When I got this movie, it was a Christmas present. I was living in my most favorite apartment I've ever had in downtown Little Rock two blocks away from the Governor's Mansion. The building I lived in had been built in 1929. There are only 4 apartments in it. Each one bedroom/bath. Each 1,000 sq. ft. and each $395.00 per month. It came with the cable, trash and water paid and in the basement there was a washer and a dryer that all of us tennants could use for free. They weren't the coin-operated kind. I loved that apartment. The floors were the original wood, the windows had the original glass. It had the original crown molding around the ceiling and not like the new kind that looks like crap, but the kind they made in 1929 that was meant to hang pictures on from wires so that you wouldn't have to bang holes in the wall with nails. The ceilings were about 12 or 13 ft. high and there were lots and lots of tall windows. I think 6 in the living room alone, 3 in the dining room and 5 or 6 in my bedroom. If I had the chance and the means, I would move back into that apartment without a second thought. That was the first time in my life that I actually lived in an apartment that I liked, not just one I could afford. It was one I could afford and one that I liked. I knew it the moment I saw it. I told the real estate guy the minute we walked in, before I'd even seen the rest of the apartment, "I'm going to live here". He said something I didn't quite hear about checking my credit and all, but you know I wasn't paying any attention to him. I was so excited. Again, the first time I've ever been excited about moving into an apartment.
I know it may not seem like a big deal to some, but it was a big deal to me. A very big deal. I only got to live there a year because I made the mistake of taking in a pregnant, homeless stripper named Jessica. After she had her baby, which she put up for adoption, she wanted to move into an apartment we could both live in. To be roomates. She didn't want to continue sleeping on the couch despite the fact that I totally supported her throughout the last trimester of her pregnancy. I even got her a dream job through my connections with some people at the, then, Excelsior Hotel (very posh).
I'm just sitting here watching this movie and having such memories and smells. I can see every detail of that apartment and the building, the buildings around it, the neighborhood and even which parts of the sidewalk were cracked and which were not.
I miss living there, but I learned an important lesson in the taking in of Jessica. I'm not meant to help everyone who crosses my path. Like when Jesus went to the pool of water that was supposed to heal people. All the lepers went there and put themselves or had someone put them in the water in the hopes that they would be healed. But out of all the people there that day, Jesus only healed one person. At first glance, it seems cruel that he could heal them all but didn't. The thing I learned and was convinced that it was what God had wanted me to learn from all of that hell with Jessica, is that you only do what God has planned for you. You can't help God as far as furthering his plans or speeding up his work. Naturally, anyone with even a smidge of a soft heart would want to help everyone they could who needed it. The thing is that not everyone wants help and it's not meant for me to help everyone. Just the people that God has planned for me to help. God put Jessica in my life at least for that reason. I don't know what other things may come of it because I don't talk to her anymore since she went to prison. She lives not too far from me, but I really don't want to get back into her life and I don't think she wants to know me anymore either. I loved her. A part of me still does, but there are certain people I think, that you have to love from a distance just because they are so toxic. I hope she's ok, though. I really, really want only her happiness.
Funny how a little thing like some film wound around two spools inside a VHS tape can bring back all those memories.
Anyway, I was just thinking that it's so funny-weird how certain movies/songs/places bring back such clear memories. When I got this movie, it was a Christmas present. I was living in my most favorite apartment I've ever had in downtown Little Rock two blocks away from the Governor's Mansion. The building I lived in had been built in 1929. There are only 4 apartments in it. Each one bedroom/bath. Each 1,000 sq. ft. and each $395.00 per month. It came with the cable, trash and water paid and in the basement there was a washer and a dryer that all of us tennants could use for free. They weren't the coin-operated kind. I loved that apartment. The floors were the original wood, the windows had the original glass. It had the original crown molding around the ceiling and not like the new kind that looks like crap, but the kind they made in 1929 that was meant to hang pictures on from wires so that you wouldn't have to bang holes in the wall with nails. The ceilings were about 12 or 13 ft. high and there were lots and lots of tall windows. I think 6 in the living room alone, 3 in the dining room and 5 or 6 in my bedroom. If I had the chance and the means, I would move back into that apartment without a second thought. That was the first time in my life that I actually lived in an apartment that I liked, not just one I could afford. It was one I could afford and one that I liked. I knew it the moment I saw it. I told the real estate guy the minute we walked in, before I'd even seen the rest of the apartment, "I'm going to live here". He said something I didn't quite hear about checking my credit and all, but you know I wasn't paying any attention to him. I was so excited. Again, the first time I've ever been excited about moving into an apartment.
I know it may not seem like a big deal to some, but it was a big deal to me. A very big deal. I only got to live there a year because I made the mistake of taking in a pregnant, homeless stripper named Jessica. After she had her baby, which she put up for adoption, she wanted to move into an apartment we could both live in. To be roomates. She didn't want to continue sleeping on the couch despite the fact that I totally supported her throughout the last trimester of her pregnancy. I even got her a dream job through my connections with some people at the, then, Excelsior Hotel (very posh).
I'm just sitting here watching this movie and having such memories and smells. I can see every detail of that apartment and the building, the buildings around it, the neighborhood and even which parts of the sidewalk were cracked and which were not.
I miss living there, but I learned an important lesson in the taking in of Jessica. I'm not meant to help everyone who crosses my path. Like when Jesus went to the pool of water that was supposed to heal people. All the lepers went there and put themselves or had someone put them in the water in the hopes that they would be healed. But out of all the people there that day, Jesus only healed one person. At first glance, it seems cruel that he could heal them all but didn't. The thing I learned and was convinced that it was what God had wanted me to learn from all of that hell with Jessica, is that you only do what God has planned for you. You can't help God as far as furthering his plans or speeding up his work. Naturally, anyone with even a smidge of a soft heart would want to help everyone they could who needed it. The thing is that not everyone wants help and it's not meant for me to help everyone. Just the people that God has planned for me to help. God put Jessica in my life at least for that reason. I don't know what other things may come of it because I don't talk to her anymore since she went to prison. She lives not too far from me, but I really don't want to get back into her life and I don't think she wants to know me anymore either. I loved her. A part of me still does, but there are certain people I think, that you have to love from a distance just because they are so toxic. I hope she's ok, though. I really, really want only her happiness.
Funny how a little thing like some film wound around two spools inside a VHS tape can bring back all those memories.
Labels: navel gazing
posted by Anais Nin at
8:06 PM
1 Comments:
It is indeed .. even really bad movies can trigger happy memories for me .. for example, I can remember seeing one movie I truly hate, "Pret a Porter," while on vacation with my family in North Carolina ... Even though it was horrid, we all had a good laugh about it and really enjoyed ourselves anyway
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home