Beware the Lure of Altered Realities Offered by Movies

I love movies and television. I grew up wanting to be Super Girl or Lois Lane. I watched hundreds of hours of cartoons as a child, and found that my idea of reality was set in stone.

As I became older, I started to watch "teen" movies. I watched Money Can't Buy Love and my version of high school was affected. All I had to do was have expensive clothes and the "in" friends and I would be happy. I could date that football player and be popular. All it took was money, but lots of it. So I slaved away at my part-time job to make money (that I didn't have time to spend) so that I could have friends (that I didn't have time to hang out with). And because I was still unhappy, I , like any teenager, blamed my parents.

Then, having watched all the TV and movies, knew I HAD to go to college. And there I would go to great parties, and meet all these great guys on the quad. I would play Frisbee and fall in love, graduate and have the American dream of 2.3 kids and a dog. We would both make excellent salaries, because we went to college and we would drive a mid-size care and a mini-van. That's what the movies led me to believe was normal.

Then I got to school, and found that I had to work full-time to afford to go, live at home, and study in all my free time. Any friends I had, I lost track of due to my even further lack of time than high school. And, to top it off, all the guys on the quad were shallow, and only worried if you were going to the party so you could drink enough that they might get laid. On top of that, my grades suffered due to lack of study time, and I could not keep enough hours at work to stay in school. I had gotten credit cards and maxed them out buying books, so I had that burden as well.

So when reality hit, I was so far in debt that life seemed like a horror movie, rather than a romantic comedy. I quit school, went to work, truly full-time, promising myself that I would go back to school when the opportunity presented itself. I have slaved and worked up to three jobs at a time to get my debt under control, I worked my way up the ladder and over and over again found that the glass ceiling hurts when you don't have the magical bachelors degree to magically pass through it to the next level.

Finally, after ten years I have made way to the point where school is within reach again, and my mother has been diagnosed with breast cancer. I had to quit my job and move back home again to take care of her. I am working on a part-time job again to keep my bills under control, and struggling to make the path to school remain a reality.

I watch the movies now with cynicism and realize how far from reality they are. To be honest, I prefer fantasy fiction books, because I cannot stretch my imagination enough to include dragons and vampires in my reality. It is easier to put the book down and go back to work, than to watch Legally Blonde or something similar. In fact, one of my recent favorite movies is Waitress. It preserved the harsh reality of life, right up until the end when she magically inherits a pie shop and lives happily ever after.

So I warn all teenagers who believe the world to be at your feet, actually you are at the mercy of the world. Watch that it does not step on you.