Stairs to no end from Daniella Koffler on Vimeo.
This is a parable about asking questions, the fear that inhibits us and how difficult it is to stifle curiosity permanently.
When I was 11 years old I thought all adults had to have children especially if they ended up in a longterm relationship. The few I met who did not follow this rule were deliciously rebellious. I wondered how they’d gotten away with it but was pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to follow in their footsteps. For one thing, most of them were men and I’d somehow come to the conclusion that the rules weren’t so easily bent for women.
I didn’t know why things were this way or how to change them but in quiet moments I thought about it often. It was a puzzle for which I hadn’t been given all of the pieces yet.
There were a few adult women in our social circles who waited until they were really old to have a baby. Some were 30 or even older! I thought, therefore, that I could probably delay it until I was that age. At which point I’d figure out some other reason to wait just one more year for a decade or two until I became impossibly old.
It was only as I grew older that I figured out that becoming a parent really was a choice. No one could force me to have a child and it was ok to never do it.
That realization was a breathe of fresh air. In the near future would come other labels: bi. non-theist. humanist.
A generation or two ago I don’t know that I would have been able to be so open about who I really am to the world.
But it all started with a question I had yet to answer and a conviction I couldn’t (quite) name.
Respond
What did you think of the video? What questions or identities have bubbled their way to your surfaces?
I think a generation ago, Lydia, a lot of things were best kept to oneself, or at least to one’s closest friends. Especially anything to do with one’s sexuality. Perhaps because I grew up in that era, I am still pretty reluctant to publicly discuss most aspects of my sexuality, even though there’s not much to me that would be considered shocking today. Nevertheless, I consider myself quietly confident about who I am — both sexually and in other ways. And I think accepting yourself as you are is one key to happiness.
It’s amazing how much these things change. That isn’t something I think about much to be honest.
Again, apologies for my very late responses. I did not mean to ignore you!