I watched the Golden Globe-winning movie La La Land with my daughter last weekend. The movie is about Mia (Emma Stone), a struggling actress, and Sebastian (Ryan Gosling), a jazz pianist, who fall in love and push each other to live their dreams. Sebastian pushes Mia to do a one-woman play, and she pushes him to open up his bar. She even comes up with a name, “Seb’s”, for his future bar. As they pursue their dreams, they decide to end their relationship but promise to love each other forever. Five years later, they both have achieved their dreams, but Mia is now married to another man. The final scene is when Mia and her husband accidentally enter Seb’s. A flashback sequence happens where a “what if they ended up together” plays out. The two then share a smile as Mia leaves the bar.
The movie brings a lot of music and dance into the proceedings, and repeatedly plays their theme song all throughout the movie. This has forced me to ask: What is it about music that makes me think of my what-ifs? How significant are these moments in where I am today? What are these “La La’s” in my life?
When I reached high school, I always wished to be “free”—of many things but mostly of expectations from everyone around me. And maybe because I was a middle child, I always saw my significance outside of my own family.
I always imagined a life outside of the Philippines, like in the US or Canada. When I was given a chance to study in New York for high school, I thought this was it. I would study well, get into an Ivy League university and, finally, live a life of independence abroad. My guy best friend was also studying in Canada then, so we also made a lot of plans together.
When that did not happen, I was given another chance when I worked as an intern in Washington, D.C., right after the university. My good friends and I would laugh at it now, but they remember me calling them long distance and telling them I have found a life in the US.
Of course, circumstances went the other way, and I found myself back in the Philippines in a law school, amid new people and circumstances. At the time, I thought my future was carved in a cookie-cutter Filipino-Chinese life. But as chance and providence would have it, a newfound friend would steer me to a different course. And the rest, after 16 years, is now a simple history. If I had to play a La La Land moment in my head, it would probably look like this: A simple house in the suburbs with my family somewhere in North America; working in my dream job; weekends at the park or library, reading a book and visiting museums. That said, stepping out of that “La La” moment, I would be like Mia—with a smile and a lot of gratitude for the life I have today.
After the movie, Meagan at 10 told me she didn’t understand the movie. It didn’t make sense to her why the two main characters didn’t end up together when they love each other.
I explained to Meagan it’s hard for her to understand this now because of her tender age. There are less years to look back on and ponder over choices made. Having said that, I told her it’s pertinent for her to know that decisions made now will affect the next chapters of one’s life. That it’s good to make decisions after careful deliberation to avoid regrets, and to be grateful to people who helped you along the way.
Later on, I realized from her question that sometimes, there’s really is no good or bad decision. It’s a combination of values and circumstance. In the end, we thank that moment of warmth and the person or persons who helped us build our dreams.
Mia and Sebastian’s choice was to pursue their passions in that moment in their respective lives. It takes a lot of courage to do this. And I think the end result is a life one can answer for with gratitude and joy. For me, life lessons like these are some of the hardest to teach my kids. You don’t know when to start injecting the realities in life. You think they wouldn’t understand any of it just yet, and then get surprised when questions pop up. More than this, you end up fascinated in how parent-child conversations can now be this deep and long.
These are the moments that make me grateful for the seminar I attended when Meagan was still 2. Maria Dionisio shared that a one-on-one time with each parent was very important for each child at an early age. She shared that such time’s objective is to open communication lines. She would spend P50 at a fast-food restaurant every week to listen to his son’s stories about school. I remember her saying that if our child doesn’t practice communicating with us when they’re young, it will be even harder to establish communication with them when they’re older.
We prepared dinner as a family last Sunday. After having Meagan’s lasagna, my husband’s steak and my salad, Meagan and I ended up having a two-hour chat on “life”. I truly hope that with our continued guidance, my kids would one day know how to handle their future La La Land moments in life—with no regrets and as much gratitude as I have for the life I live today.