It was nearly 10pm, and I had hardly smiled all day. The combination of anxiety, lack of social interaction, and the grey winter weather had kept me pretty depressed throughout the day – a combination I’m sure so many people can relate to right now. Although not every day of quarantine has been hard, it had been a relatively difficult day, and I was searching for a pick-me-up before I went to bed. I wanted to protect myself from feeling like the entire day was a loss.
I searched Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, Disney+, and our home’s extensive DVD/Blu-Ray collection for something inspiring or exciting. (Did you know that having more options actually makes decision-making more stressful and physically painful? It’s been scientifically proven. People with fewer choices [two or three options vs. five to one hundred] are happier. But that’s a topic for another day.)
After 20 minutes of searching, I finally made my selection: Notting Hill. I crawled into my bed with my laptop and started watching a movie I’ve seen at least a dozen times before.
I was still a little sad, and was uncertain if I’d even finish the movie until we reached my favorite line:
“Happiness isn’t happiness without a violin-playing goat!”
For the first time that day, I genuinely laughed. The movie changed my mood entirely.
Which is fascinating, because I knew it was coming. I’ve seen the movie enough times to give you a play-by-play of each scene and my favorite lines or moments in each. And yet, rewatching it can still change my outlook on life when I experience it again in real-time.
This is true not just of movies, but of books, shows, other art, and even food. There’s a reason we call certain meals “comfort food!” (Although usually, my clothes aren’t comfortable after I eat those foods…hehe.) When we revisit old and familiar things, it brings about that sense of joy in expectation: we know what’s coming and that we like it. Especially in difficult times or moments of uncertainty in life, we can return to familiar stories, characters, experiences, items, and tastes to remind us of past moments of joy and give us an expectation for those moments to return.
What familiar things do you go back to when you need a sense of comfort and stability?
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