The Violet Evergarden post "depression" blog

My roommate and I just watched the Violet Evergarden movie that released a couple years ago, and I must say:

Gesamtkunstwerk.

Nothing is without its flaws. I felt the climax was a little melodramatic. But part of me also felt that... it had the right to be. It had every right to be a little melodramatic. It's a climax that had been building and building since the first episode of the show that released four years ago. I was a couple years late to the party, but Violet's story got the ending it deserved with this movie.

I am left with an emptiness, like a feeling of loss. Which, I guess makes sense. The story has come to an end. And you can't even be upset like you could be if it were a bad ending. No, no, this was a good one. The bittersweet kind.

It's not that Violet Evergarden, both the series and this film, don't deal with heavy and serious issues. They're both filled with trauma, pain, suffering. They're hard to watch, and I don't mean to imply that they make one cringe. I mean that it's a lot of heavy stuff, for lack of a better word. Not a whole lot of lighthearted content here when the show asks questions like: is a person who killed people in a war, fathers and brothers and sons who will never return, deserving of love? Or is it a comical irony, dare I say even selfish, to struggle so much with losing the one that loved her, and the one that she realizes she loved back?

But the backdrop of the show, the trajectory and growth of its characters, all point to an outlook that dares to be optimistic. Yes, it is daring to be optimistic—to be so hopeful, to have faith. It's all so much easier to be misanthropic because there is plenty of evidence for it. I say such things myself: I hate people, people are stupid, etc. And maybe we don't mean half of it. Maybe it's just blowing off steam.

I don't know if I can really put my feelings into words that I wouldn't want to throw away. Oddly enough, finding the words and putting them into letters is a theme that runs throughout Violet's story. Writing letters is an avenue to connect with each other. Writing in general is a cathartic experience for me, and so this theme really resonated with me.

What does love mean? Half of Violet's story is embarking on a journey to discover that for herself. She's an emotional mess from being a child soldier who was kidnapped from her family. Only one person showed her love, a young military officer who took it upon himself to protect her, and to try and provide her with even the smallest semblance of a normal life. Showing her love, an emotion she doesn't understand but wants to understand, completely changes her life. It doesn't make her life easy. But it gives it purpose, meaning, as she searches for this thing, love, that she lost before she even knew what it was. Her journey is just as much helping others express their emotions by writing letters for them, as it is learning about herself and coming to terms with her own emotions, no matter how painstaking.

I don't know if I'll ever experience love the way that Violet does, except perhaps vicariously. Probably not, reason being that I dislike ugly things, and that makes me an ugly, shallow person. Yet stories like Violet Evergarden are powerful enough to give me hope. To at least wish that others can have that experience. To take solace in the fact that a talented enough writer can tell a story that genuinely transforms people's lives. And it doesn't have to be a big, dramatic transformation. It need only be a small one made to the trajectory of their lives. If we can imagine it, we can make it reality.

All I can do is keep an open heart. I've turned away love in the past because I was not attracted to that person, as sick as it is to say. And I too once felt love for a girl that didn't feel the same way. What a shame. But maybe one day the right person will come along. I am an addict to beauty, and a hopeless romantic, and so I must ask for mercy and forgiveness for my sins.

Until then, like Sisyphus, you must imagine me happy despite how foolish you may think that is. I will withstand the pain of constant longing for a person I haven't met, and if it kills me, that would be alright. Because I know what love feels like.

All things must come to an end. Maybe I can pass this story onto you though.

A story about what it means to love.

Christine, 6 years later, and I still love you. But I hadn't thought about you in a long while.

I also haven't seen you in even longer; maybe at this point I am just in love with a memory.

But I am glad to have moved on with my life, as you did with yours. I don't believe that we only ever love one person. You played an important part in shaping me into who I am today. The fire might have been a little hot, I may have loved and lost, but I can't say I regret it. There's nothing to regret. I chose all of it, and would do so again. I'm only sorry for how angry I was when my feelings weren't reciprocated, and the hurtful things that I said. But I think you know that already.

I hope you're doing well.

As for me, I'm doing fine.

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