B IS FOR BREAKFAST CLUB

"I've dreamt in my life dreams that have stayed with me ever after, and changed my ideas; they've gone through and through me, like wine through water, and altered the colour of my mind."    ~Emily Bronte

The Breakfast Club was a movie, not a dream.  However, I feel that the above quote most certainly does apply.  I shall never forget sitting in the movie theatre watching that film and seeing all of the illusions I had shatter about how I fit into the drama that was playing out at my own high school. 

The first day of high school I had already undergone a transforming experience with regard to my junior high school bully.  She allowed me to see her fear about this new school environment, and the ground underneath both of our feet shifted.  By being so afraid that she had to ask for MY help, she lost all of her power over me.  We both knew she would never get it back.  I understood everything about bullies after that first day of high school; they no longer had any control over me.

However, cliques and labels still were a mystery to me until The Breakfast Club.  We were all pigeon-holed into a grouping that we could never break free of... until I saw that movie.  And then I realized that, once again, it was the Same Old Story.  That story was a junior high mash-up revisited of The Wizard Of Oz.  The only thing that ever holds you back is the Scary Dude Behind The Curtain. 

Watching The Breakfast Club, I could almost feel the glass breaking and exploding and flying away.  It felt like freedom.  Or maybe it was like being in a dark room and someone turning on the light.  Nothing was any different than it was before except I COULD SEE IT FOR WHAT IT ACTUALLY WAS. 

Yep, all of those labels were still there.  Popular kids, athletes, brains, theatre kids, music kids, losers, whatever.  The thing was I could choose to be a part of those groups without being limited by those groups.  More importantly, no longer was someone being in one of those groups mean that I couldn't talk to them, or they to me.  They weren't any better or worse than I was.  Just different.  My fear of someone in a different group, by virtue of their difference, ended.  My inability to speak to someone because we weren't part of the same social group was over.  If I chose not to speak to you... well, it had nothing to do with what social group you were in.

As someone who has watched that movie many times throughout the years, I have come to take away different messages from it.  When I was a teenager, it really changed all of my ideas about how I saw myself, and everyone else, in that arena called high school.  I came to the conclusion that everyone was afraid and lashing out and if you started meeting people with kindness, that is what you would get back.  

As an adult, I watch that movie and I see a variation on that theme.  All of the characters, adults and kids, are coming from a place of fear.  All of them are afraid of  something and that is what has brought them to that place, that day.  When we act out of fear, we bring ugly things into our lives.  Now, when I have something in my life that I don't want, I find myself standing in the mirror and saying to myself, "What did you do, say, think, that brought this into your life?"  And when I can figure that one out, I can crawl, walk, or drag myself toward a solution.  There is always a door of some kind.  There is always a way out.

The Breakfast Club: A Passion and a Life Lesson.     


image found on photobucket.com 

Did The Breakfast Club change any perceptions that you had about your life when you saw it?  Was there a movie that you saw when you were a teenager that altered the way you saw the world and your place in it?  Do you feel that if you bring kindness you tend to get it?  That most people act badly out of fear?  That if you have something in your life that you don't want it is because you brought it and you have the power to get rid of it?