I just watched and re-watched a film. It's called "Crime and Punishment in Suburbia". It's an adaptation and retelling of the story "Crime and Punishment" but set in modern day (well 1999) suburbia. I won't go too much into the specifics of the story, but one of the characters undergoes a transformation in the end of the story, and the person she has become is like so many people in this day and age of broken homes and dysfunctional families. As one of the characters in the film puts it they are "damaged little f*ckers".
I've often wondered if I appreciate enough the upbringing I had - 2 loving parents and enough siblings to always have someone to talk to, no matter where or when I was. In the course of my life I've met so many people my age who have endured and experienced things I will never be able to relate to. I've often thought that there are some relationships I've had with people which simply plateaued for this very reason.
In the arc of the character Roseanne's story she goes from being the popular girl with the jock boyfriend to the outcast with a home life that could best be described as twisted wreckage. She finds a lone friend in the school outcast, who is seemingly the only person who can relate to her state of being. One such person that I know of came to mind whilst watching this movie.
It is only recently that I learned of events that happened long ago, and I reflect upon what my life was like during that time, and I feel fortunate to have had the life that I had. These events that occurred could destroy a person, and did to some. I can't possibly fathom how this could affect a person's mental state, not just when it happens, but years and years after it has happened. There's no doubt it damages a person's psyche and affects in some way their ability to have meaningful or normal relationships with 'normal' people. It's like it becomes an unconscious impulse to push those regular people away, and seek one that is more like them.
I've often been described as 'too normal'. It's incredibly frustrating to feel that I'm too normal for someone to trust, or confide, or be intimate with. But what I can I do? I can't change who I am or what experiences I've had, and I would never ask for it - but I'd like to think that I could be more meaningful to someone who has endured unspeakable trauma. I feel as though some part of our relationship was lost before it had even been found, and I want so desperately to make it all okay.
This friend's experiences, and reactions later in life reinforce the importance of maintaining strong ethical and moral values throughout your lifetime. Not just in how you act, but in who you choose to interact with - life is too unpredictable to think that things might just be okay, or that it will work itself out for the better.
In the film redemption is found and the main character muses to herself in voiceover 'what a strange path it took to find my heart'. I'd like to think that there is the possibility for redemption or salvation for all of us, but then you hear and learn of things so horrible, so inhuman that it tests the resolve in your beliefs. Do some people deserve to burn in hell? I don't know, that's never for me to say - but nobody deserves to live a life of hell. Unfortunately some people have to anyway.
