Break Up

Recently, I was reminded by someone of how much I used to like the movie Labrynth, with David Bowie and Jennifer Connelly. And I had to laugh a bit, because, yeah, I did like that movie. I had a crush on King Jareth, The Goblin King. Keep in mind, I was just a kid. He was cool because he had magical powers and he gave Sarah a pretty dress and he could have turned out to be a good guy and made the Labrynth a beautiful place to live. As a child, it never occurred to me that he wouldn't. Not because he couldn't, but because he didn't want to. He had made significant choices in his life as to the nature of his character. He was never going to be the good guy my innocent mind believed he could be, if only he loved someone enough. Which, of course, would have been me. Uh-huh. Flash forward to my adult nature and I cringe just a bit. Not only for the fact that I so obviously misread human nature, but because I crushed on a guy who wore more makeup than I did (even in my college days) and would probably have wanted to date all the same guys I did.

Despite liking Jareth as a kid, I still loved the scene where Sarah realizes that she has done her best to fight through whatever obstacles have come, that he is NOT there to help her as he claims, that she does, in fact, have power over him and that she chooses to exercise her own personal power to drop kick him to the curb and get her baby brother back. It is a great moment. Properly amped up by synthesizers and 1980's special effects. Nice touch.

Have you ever needed to let go of someone or something like that? Maybe it's a person or even a habit. Maybe you thought it was a good thing once. Or, like me as a naive kid, that you could control the way this person or this habit manifested itself. Only, you can't. Because people and characteristics have a nature. Truth can't be a lie and a lie can't be truth. A friend of mine recently got engaged. And I am very happy for this person. And it got me thinking of how it could have gone the other way. Think of what happens when you try to keep a relationship in limbo for too long. It goes against the natural progression of a relationship to either continue to blossom and develop or end. Just hanging out for eternity in date mode is like all those people who could never get out of the labrynth. Think Garbage City.

Yet that made me think even more about the habits and character traits we hold onto, almost like someone we are dating. Some of them are love-hate relationships. Some of them are just quirky. And some are downright toxic. Would you keep a toxic boyfriend? Someone who you thought made you wonderful and happy but, as the relationshp continued, became more and more controlling and abusive. Someone who tried to change you, to destroy you. I'm talking really toxic here, not just someone who wants you to floss your teeth. Would you stay? Only if you had let this person destroy enough of your belief in yourself to think you didn't have the strength to leave or didn't deserve better. Bad habits, sins, are like that too. Why? Because there's a guy out there, we'll call him Uncle Louie, who wants to control you. Who wants to say, a lot like King Jareth did, "just love me, do as I say, and I will be your slave".

Catch the illogic of that? And yet we fall for it over and over again. Since the beginning of the history of man. You can't submit yourself to a vice and expect it to submit to you. So what should do? Break up. Quite literally if that will help you. Imagine the vice as a person. Imagine the vice the way someone who was truly that vice would actually look. Not the way you want the vice to look so you can pretend it's not really that bad. It is that bad. Remember? This is Mr. Toxic. Now, be Sarah. You are strong enough. You have fought your way through dangers untold and hardships unnumbered. You have fought your way beyond the Goblin City to take back the virtue He has stolen. Your will is a strong as His and your kingdom as great. He has no power over you.

Remember that. The light is always stronger than the darkness. Sarah was always more powerful than King Jareth. She just had to believe it and do it.