Conduir el meu cotxe
I am a romantic. It has always caused me a lot of shame to admit it, but at this point in the movie, pretending not to be one is starting to seem a bit ridiculous. Ridiculous not only due to the imposition of criteria not my own, camouflaged under a kind of protective Frankenstinian cover, but also because, because of this, I get into absolutely unnecessary spirals when it comes to matters of love.
The desire to be more open in love than I actually am is something I've not only discussed with friends but, now that I've become a regular podcast listener, I've rediscovered listening to the stories of women I admire but don't know personally. Ultimately, in love, we all want to be a much better version of ourselves. Yes, I would love to live love in a free and fantastic way, without contradictions between different affairs, but at the end of the day, I like being treated like a princess, having bouquets of flowers bought for me, and being looked at from the third row. I suppose the romantic movies I watched throughout my childhood and unbearable adolescence have something to do with it.
A few weeks ago, we went to see *Drive My Car* at the cinema. It's a slow-cooked movie; beautiful, deep, and tender. It's one of those movies that has just the right amount of magic but enough reality to make you think that, if you let go a little, it could be your own story. A three-hour balm that tells the love story between a stage actor and a scriptwriter. At one point in the film, the chauffeur says to the director a line that has stuck with me for days: "Is it so hard for you to accept that she loved you with all her soul but needed those adventures to feel alive?" Half asleep, when I heard that line, I was speechless, because it embodies some of my greatest vulnerabilities: pride.
The inability to let someone else drive your car doesn't lie in giving up the practice, but in what it signifies, suddenly not having your hands on the wheel. It's about losing the apparent control you have over a life you've built by always identifying yourself as the lead actress, where you think that if you step out of the spotlight, you'll cease to be relevant to the plot. But sometimes it's precisely behind the scenes that you can savor the best of theater, in those moments between your partner's scene and that precious monologue you've rehearsed for weeks.
I remember my father, before he passed away, told me to free myself from fear and allow myself to 'live'; that the pride from past wounds makes no sense in a present that could hold a bit of happiness hidden away. I think about that phrase often. But freeing oneself from one's own fears is not always easy, especially when they've grown strong like sturdy roots around everything you understand as your own. I suppose it's a matter of grabbing the pruning shears and starting to cut away the small roots of pride, mistrust, and fears; to slowly let in a more liberated way of loving.
