"Every little action of a common day makes or unmakes character." After months of anticipation and a day of mentally preparing to cry, I found myself ninety minutes deep into Last Christmas and sobbing into my sweater sleeves, leaving marks on the worn fabric from my makeup running down my face. I had no doubt this story would make me cry and remained strong in that notion even with no knowledge on what the movie exactly entailed otherwise, but I was not at all equipped with what residual emotion would be left after the fact. Last Christmas is a movie directed by Paul Feig, starring Emilia Clarke and Henry Golding, and a movie that will forever hold a special place in my heart..... no matter how hard it made me cry. This story line follows Kate, a London resident on the coattails of a health scare that almost left her for dead, as she works through her own cynicism and displeasure of what her life has brought her. As the story begins to progress, we're introduced first to Kate's future cohort, Tom, in a moment of interest as he examines a peculiar bird residing in the rafters of the Christmas shop Kate is employed at, thus blossoming the start of a rather unusual friendship. As we work through the days and nights of trials and tribulations, joining Kate on this adventure of romance and self-discovery, there's an expected element of romance between Kate and Tom that undoubtedly leaves us all wanting more by the end of every day. It is through this story that I found myself reflecting on the aspects of my life that could use a little chin raise (spoiler but not a spoiler) and what subsequently left me sobbing hours removed from the movie. This 103 minutes is what has changed my perspective from a recently futile existence to a softer version of myself I was once painfully acquainted with. At some point in the past 5 months I have had a conversation with my second cousin in which she gave me a piece of advice that has stuck with me above all the rest. When the pain of having too much of an empathetic understanding of other people came crashing down on me, when stress ate at my productivity more than I ate food in the day, and when my concern for upsetting other people far surpassed my concern for my own peace of mind, I started to feel rather destructive. This is something I can only assume is an adverse effect of my (recently officially diagnosed) on-going anxiety: wanting to do a complete 180 on who I am, what I do, how I work, who I keep close vs who I don't, and whether or not I continue to care for people in the way and to the extent I do. I spent the entire summer wanting nothing more than to bring the hammer down. To put my foot down and say enough is enough, to set fire to all that seemingly couldn't and wouldn't be lit, to turn into a completely different person because I was tired of being taken advantage of, or underestimated, or ignored, or swept under the rug by anyone and everyone who came in contact with me. Through the phone I heard "don't let anyone harden you. protect yourself, but don't become solid all the way through," and heard this ring in my head again during a scene in Last Christmas when Kate says she recognized that the part of her that was supposed to be special was no longer special and it felt like half of herself died. This was the first time I began to tear up. Recognizing the part of myself that I too felt like had died. This is a fine line I'm walking, trying to explain to you the emotional discovery I've gone through and making myself sound like I'm engulfed in painting myself as a saint (I assure you I am not.) As I unpack all it is that I've packed, locked, and buried with bricks deep in the ocean, I'm coming to realize how much of myself I've felt has been lost. Though it may not be obvious to those looking in, nor should it have to be anyone's concern but my own (though still disheartening), there has been an obvious change. How did it take a fictional character to finally look in the mirror? Throughout the movie I recognized a lot of similarities between the character of Kate and myself, enough to make my brother and his girlfriend both look at me more than once in the dark theater to acknowledge the likeness. The nod to how Kate "used to be good at her job," runs tightly with my own feeling of my career path in the past year. How instead of trying to work against it, she simply dwells in the negativity and makes a joke about it to spare the actual energy it would take to improve upon these things making her miserable - as simply as taking care of herself. How the constant comment to "look up" eats at me like a parasite when I've become painfully aware at how much I look at my own feet while I'm walking, and how "looking up" has shown itself more in the past few days, in the middle of this revelation, than it ever has. This also pairs with the thought that if you're looking for a yellow car, you'll see one. If you're looking for a good opportunity, you have a better chance at finding one. I suppose I went into this movie looking for more understanding of myself without realizing it because what I found was uncanny. And when I decide to watch again I'm certain I will find more similarities, more details that make me realize this feeling of being shattered isn't just within the four walls of a made up Christmas shop, but can be found in some aspect of everyone's lives, the pieces will just be different. Though maybe a soul or personality transition into who I need to be or am naturally becoming, where I've begun to find my footing is in the process of softening myself again; finding when it's appropriate to be an open book or a smorgasbord of open emotion for people to pick through at their desire vs knowing when to have a demeanor that's just looked at Medusa herself. I've come to acknowledge that the soft, caring, and tender-hearted side of myself is something I had avoided exposing in most situations except those not obvious or grand, but now realize it is very much what makes me who I am and what ultimately drives me to make the decisions I do. I acknowledge my active desire to see situations from all sides, I acknowledge my constant want to help, I acknowledge the minor things I do or say to people that quite literally change the atmosphere of the room to a more comforting air, and most of all I acknowledge the disservice I was planning to do to myself by taking my good intent and locking it in a cabinet. The hardest piece of knowledge I had to give attention to, in all of this on-going progress, is that the next person that gets my heart might not use it for what it is intended, so why should I waste it on those who didn't get one of these for themselves?