Growing Up Backwards and Benjamin Button

I watched Benjamin Button the other day and I absolutely fell in love with it.  A friend of mine had sent me a text and told me that it reminded him of Growing up Backwards, which it does as far as the title, but the content is quite different.

What I liked about the movie:  I’ve never seen anything like it before.  It’s emotional.  The cinematography…..the hands, and faces add for a bit of an eerie feeling, but you’re not quite sure why.  It just provokes curiosity.

So, the movie motivated me to share the first paragraph of Growing up Backwards. The date on it says that I wrote it in January 2003.  I remember starting it with a glass of wine and many deep breathes, and I very vividly remember my hands shaking.  I have no idea what made me so nervous.  I had absolutely no idea where I was going with it, and no idea of what the content would be.  All I knew is that it would be about Isabella.  And from there, I just wrote.  Enjoy and critique away.

““I’m making the right choice,” she tells herself as she stares through the window at the snowflakes falling to the ground.  “They’re not as pretty as people say they are.”  Her thoughts are racing.  She feels the loss of breath she gets when her anxiety takes over.  “She’s going to be taken care of.”  The convincing isn’t working.  Sipping her coffee, she wonders if she should give her one last kiss.  Carefully walking down the hallway to her bedroom door, Isa feels like she is going to faint.  Her second-guessing is over-ruling her logic.  “She needs her Mother.  I want to see her smile a million times over.  We can make it through anything, just her and me.  I only have to work this job until I finish school. I can quit on my own.”   Crouching to the floor, she sobs quietly; if Isa awakes, her heart will stop her.  “Alright, one last kiss”, she says while pulling herself up for the walk.  She pauses at the doorway and covers her mouth and nose to muffle the sobs.  “I have to do this quickly.  I can’t think about it.”  She walks over to the crib methodically.  She bends over, touches her face, kisses her forehead and becomes overwhelmed by the freshness of her smell.  Ignoring the thoughts, she whispers, “Sleep well my little buckaroo.”  Quickly she leaves the room and returns to the window.”

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Boldly shy and neurotically compassionate.

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