Grown A Notch

Yesterday I watched “Ralph Breaks The Internet” the sequel to the 2012 movie “Wreck-it Ralph”.
The story delivered a simple beautiful message about growing up, growing apart and friendships.
What really caught my attention as the plot unfolded in front of me was how I felt about it.

Growing up, I remember watching classics like Cars, Kung Fu Panda, How to Train your Dragon to name a few.
Most of the classics followed a very similar and simple path.
A simple story, obvious character motives and a happy ending.
I remember not being always able to understand the dialogue, which now that I do, I gotta say it was so well written.
That aside, I felt like I remember being able to easily piece the plot.
And it was magical..

Then I grew up..
Lightning McQueen retired. Po has given his title to a predecessor. Hiccup got married and had kids of his own.
And Ralph and Vanellope are now miles apart. We can go into the long discourse of how sometimes sequels are cash grabs that ruin the plot and are inconsistent with the worlds built in the original movies but that's not what I'm here to write about.
Instead, what I realised as I watched “Ralph breaks the internet” is that I'm no longer a kid.
And that, much like I have, the characters in these stories have also been affected by the passage of time.
The stories have become more complex. The pace of the movie is somehow faster and everything just seems confusing and puzzling at times, or super obvious at others. This isn't what I grew up watching as a kid. This isn't my childhood anymore.

Honestly, though, that's just fine.
While it sucks that the companies that made said movies kinda created disconnected sequels for (Money), the plots themselves are oftentimes not that bad. If anything, you could relate to how things change as you grew up watching each title.

The change is often uncomfortable and ,to those like me who prefer a safe constant, unnerving and scary. Especially considering how, much like in those titles, we too are constantly puzzled as we face the world. We make mistakes that are super obvious and that could have been avoided, and we feel and do childish things despite having grown up. Because that's just in our human nature.

However, just because change is scary doesn't mean it's bad. And I know we've heard this phrase so much over the past two decades that it almost became ironic.
But hear me out for a second.
Knowing something isn't the same as truly understanding it.
I've known about change and I've experienced it myself, and honestly I mostly shied away from it and rejected it.
Sometimes I still do, but there have been moments that I can only describe as wonderful blessings. Yes those blessings come with their unique challenges but that's just life. And you have two ways of going about it. Embrace it and enjoy it, or just ruin the beauty of it and be forever tormented. And trust me, it's not worth lamenting over the past because it'll never return.

That being said, every once in a while you could spoil yourself a little. Return to your old nest, examine the artifacts of your childhood. Maybe sit around with your new family and rediscover the joy of watching Monsters Inc. whilst making new special memories.


Or don't, idk :/