Flipped

   A few weeks ago, I signed up for Netflix because I wanted to watch the Titanic movie online but I couldn’t find it. I figured Netflix was bound to have it, given all the hype. Turns out I didn’t find the Titanic, but I found Flipped instead. Flipped! One of my favourite young adult books by Wendelin Van Draanen had been turned into a movie! Who knew! The book followed the story of Juli Baker and Bryce Loski from both their viewpoints. I loved that book. I’d read it several times and the story never fails to make me sigh and smile. It’s just the sweetest story ever of how the tables can turn when it comes to life and love.

   I don’t want to sell out the plot, because it’s too good, but I will say that the story of Juli and Bryce’s transformation, and their ever-conflicting feelings for each other leaves you with the feeling that you’ve just encountered something real and meaningful. It’s not just about transformation, it’s about perspective, and how it can change at the drop of a hat.

    A chance occurrence, one misunderstood encounter, and everything changed for them. Bryce, ever cowardly, never stood up for himself or to anyone else - to his dad, to his best friend, and to Juli, who’s annoyed him since second grade. On the other hand, Juli, true to her heart, never backed down; whether it came to swooning over Bryce or fighting for what matters, she stuck to her gut. Until she pieced together what she thought was the truth about Bryce - that he was less, not more, than the sum of his parts. As fate, or Ms Van Draanen, would have it, just as Juli’s feelings begin to fade, Bryce’s begin to flutter. In the end, it would take more than words for either of them to have a change of heart, but you’ll have to read the book - or watch the movie - to see how it turns out.
It’s more than a story. It’s a coming of age tale about how circumstances and family dynamics and expectations and growing up and love and attraction all interplay. How we can fall head over heels for someone without really knowing them, and it takes more than just a few revelations to snap us out of that daze. How first impressions last, and it also take more than a few revelations to see past them. How assumptions can set us down a path of no return, and how we gain clarity when we manage to burst through that fog. How mistakes can build us up, and lead to something better than we could have imagined.

   Stumbling across this movie, at 2am on this lonely Thursday night, in the midst of my whirling thoughts and feelings, I gained a new appreciation of the book, and what it meant to me. I was drawn into their story, and if only for an hour and some, Bryce and Juli were real, and they were teaching me their lessons all over again.

   And oh, how I wished, as I lay watching the story unfold with a pinprick of teardrops at the brim of my eyes, I wished that there was someone with whom I could share my feelings. I imagined that someone watching with me, laughing when I laughed, and comforting me when I cried, and listening as I rambled about life and feelings and love. I imagined someone being there to understand these 2am thoughts. That someone, I imagined, would be my significant other. He’d understand. He’d get it. He’d get me. And oh how I wished “he” wasn’t just in my imagination. 

   And it struck me that maybe there wasn’t anyone out there in this world who’d understand how and why I felt some things so deeply. Maybe it was just impossible for me to fathom, or maybe I was finally being realistic with myself. Because even the people we find ourselves closest with at present will never understand 100% of our feelings 100% of the time, and it’s idealistic and probably unrealistic to think that there’s someone who could. I didn’t need someone to be my outlet, when the words trapped inside my head had already found their own sanctuary.

It amazes me that I’d never thought about writing in this intimate sense, but now I realise that it’s maybe the truest thought about writing that I’ve had. Forget the fact that I never feel like a genuine writer, or that I always doubt my ability, or that I felt the weight of “writers’ block” (which I no longer believe in FYI), or that I thought writing was “just a hobby” that I can pick up whenever I have something to say. I always have something to say. And one of the reasons I feel misunderstood and unheard sometimes is because I felt that there was no one to say it to, without realising that I didn’t need someone to say it to. 

   That’s what words are for.

   The words themselves wouldn’t understand me, but they’d make me understood.

   Writing is not just a hobby for me. From young, it has been my outlet, but as I got older, I internalised the idea of writing being a “thing on the side”, something for me to do “along with my career”. No. It’s more. It’s my life. It gives me a voice. A voice I’ve kept silent for way too long now, but now I’m willing to embrace.

   And as I sit here and re-read this piece, and how it started out about one thing and ended up about another, I have to stamp out the feelings of inadequacy. So what if I’m not following a strict thesis all the way through? So what if this sounds more like a journal entry than the feature article of an online newspaper? Writing takes all forms, shapes and sizes. There’s scholarly writing, there’s writing for an audience, and then there’s this: me writing about whatever the heck I want to write about. But who says it has to be one or the other? The power and beauty of words is in their versatility. How amazing that one word can relay invaluable knowledge. One sentence could soften a hardened heart. One paragraph can change someone’s life. One piece can relieve a burdened mind. Yet these words can come from one person. I am now that person. And write I will. I won’t always be trying to change your mind or analysing research, but I will continue to write, because it frees me from my mind’s cage, and it is in that freedom that I find solace.

   This is how I find myself now, at 5:30am, as I mould my feelings into thoughts and my thoughts into words. It took one movie, one moment, to change my outlook for the better. Bryce and Juli aren’t the only ones who’ve found themselves flipped.