Broken Heart
Warnings: I have a sad life right now and I am just trying to release some stress
A/N: Please understand it's just the ramblings of my broken life. I have anxiety so it's a bit chaotic.
As I sit here thinking about all that I want to say. I’ve been pushing away from writing as this makes my heart ache more than I’d like it to. It's more, I want to let out what is floating around in my head for me. I grew up knowing I was nothing. I was never going to be considered beautiful, smart, or even wanted. The whole of the world told me so, as did most of my family and most everyone I knew. The rest just didn’t care enough to even bother with me. I just believed them because I had lost all my hope. How do you have hope when it's just a big empty place and no light ever reaches you. My anxiety and PTSD are not really my friends, but they are the biggest voices I hear. They have made me something different in this world we live in.
I was four when I knew movies were not real. Fiction was a made-up world. A four-year-old telling a grown woman that it was ok during a scary movie because I knew it was pretend and she was jumping scared. I don’t know if that’s sad or incredible. I’m leaning towards sad mostly. How can I have such insight at four?
I can remember by the time I was eight I knew without question that a superhero would never save me even though I needed one. I was never going to be enough to be worth saving. I had already been physical and sexually abused and I was well on my way to being completely emotionally broken. (I remember being told to just get over it. That's super helpful.) I coped by letting myself get hurt in one way because it meant that I wasn’t hurt far worse in other ways. I never learned how to properly cope with everything that was thrown at me. Even my immediate family wasn’t really a safe place for me. Yet, I had a sliver of hope that maybe I was wrong. That hope died by the time I was fourteen. I lost myself and my heart.
I finished growing up with no idea what I needed and the only escape I had was going to the movies. I always wanted to see the big action adventure or superhero movies as no one can hear you cry over the loud explosions. No one can see you in pain in the dark. If you still have tears at the end of a horror movie you can blame it on the movie and not a bad life. When the big hero saves their love, I always knew that was never me. I would never be loved like that.
That changed the day I first saw Captain America in any movie. Something about the character seemed so different. I looked up the character and learned there were movies just for him. So off I went to see what was different. That was harder as I didn't any streaming service and buying anything that wasn't a need, well it was problematic. (Ok I admit it I was raising a kid on little to nothing. I know it's sad, but it happens.) I knew not even two minutes in that I was going to have my heart ripped from my chest and this was going to hurt. I watched a little Steve Rogers get beat up and his best friend keep him alive in the end. I was speechless. Every soft spot I could have for a character was playing out on that screen.
My favorite thing any actor can do is make me see the character and not the actor. I was watching Steve not Chris Evans and I was watching Bucky not Sebastian Stan. I hated it. I hated that my heart was going to be broken. I hated that I watched Bucky die. I hated that Steve crashed the plane. I felt like I was watching a part of me ripped out and killed. Like I was watching my own heart stopped beating in front of my eyes. I wanted it to be over. I knew why it hit so hard for me and yet I didn’t want to admit it. Admitting it would make it oh so more real.
I looked up the actors to see if maybe they were just really good and not great people. I was wrong, oh so very wrong. These two men are truly kind and wonderful. I don’t know if they had been directed telling them to act this way or if it was all their own choices. I really want to know. I doubt I will ever know.
Back to that first time watching them. All I wanted was for there to be no Captain America movies and I had only seen the one. (It would a couple of years before I had the nerve to watch any of the other films.) There on that big screen was my hope and I hated it.
These to incredible actors had given the world the one person I ever truly let it. The one I had lost years before. I saw him in how Steve was a “good man not a perfect soldier.” I saw him in the way Bucky always believed in Steve. I saw him in how Steve went after Bucky. I saw him in how Bucky wouldn’t leave Steve behind. I saw him in how Bucky walked and tilted is hat. I saw him in the good shot that Bucky is. I saw him in how they both broke some of the rules but never gave up. I saw him in the captain’s uniform that Steve wore. I saw him in them. It absolutely broke my heart. How could they give him back to me and take him away from me again? The only person I have no doubts about. The one person I know loved me unconditionally and fought for me. I one person I could always count on. I mean always.
They gave me back my granddad. He was a WWII Army Air Corp captain. He flew B-52 bombers over Europe. My favorite photo that I have is him in his dress uniform. Just like Steve's uniform. It makes my heart flutter when I see that uniform on screen. I am a complete softie for WWII soldiers in their dress uniforms.
Losing him was not something I could ever have been ready for, and it hurts to this day. This last decade has been the hardest for me. The last year and half left me feeling about as needed and loved as the worst people in history. I haven’t felt like a mom anymore. I haven’t felt like I was needed even by child anymore. I have felt like the world was telling me that I didn’t deserve to breathe anymore. I hurt so much. I feel just beyond alone.
What would I give to just have one more day with my granddad? Just one more day. And still I as much as I hate having my heart ripped out, I still could never ever have them undo what they did. I could never bare the pain of completely losing what my granddad was. I find so strange that it took two separate good men to give the world what my granddad was. In all the movies about soldiers I have ever seen never have I come across what my granddad was and is. The world can see him like I did. Not physically like since he wasn’t built like a demigod, but at least his heart and some of his soul. He was what grounded me and gave me a safe place. I’ll never know if he was still here how different I would have been. He would have given me my first flying lesson if I wanted to be a pilot. He would have encouraged me and told me I could do this even when I don’t believe. He would make sure I saw what he saw in me.
I know that I will never be able to meet either Chris Evans or Sebastian Stan. Could never afford to and plus I'm already invisible in this world. I wish they could know what they gave me and that he is still here in what they did with Steve and Bucky. I will always believe in these two. Not the superheroes but the good men with good hearts. I will always think of these two actors as great men because they gave me my granddad back just for a little while.
On a side note, I have seen all the Marvel movies thanks to my kid having a true love for all things superhero and space.
If you read this far thanks. Ummm, please know that I serious adore Steve and Bucky. They are as close as I can get to believing in any kind of hero right now.