Top Gun and Synecdoches

The original Top Gun was my favorite movie for years. In fact, it was the first PG-13 movie I was allowed to watch. My stepdad loved it too. It was the first movie we watched when we got our new home theater. It was the first movie he bought when laser discs came out. It was the first when DVD came out and, you guessed it, the first when Blu-ray came out. It is burned into my brain and soul. I can quote more of it than probably any other movie. But I had no clue how badly I needed to see the new Top Gun. 

I had some college buddies in town and we decided to go see it together. From the very first note of music to the rolling of the credits, tears were soaking my face. I’ve heard that same opening music hundreds of times. So it literally (and figuratively) struck a chord and I settled into the opening scene on the aircraft carrier. The movie was exactly the way I had hoped it would start. It matched the original almost shot for shot. But then, out of nowhere, I began to sob. I mean, the emotion was coming from deep within me. My body started to shake with the emotions as serious, legit tears were coming down my face. I pulled it together. After all, I was there to watch a movie. 

After I calmed down, I asked myself, “What is going on right now? What am I feeling?” As the movie went on I was sucked into the cinematography, the callbacks to the original Top Gun, the resolution that was happening for so many of the characters. But again and again during the movie something would trigger a deep emotional response. Once to the point that I almost started to hyperventilate. So I told myself to take deep breaths and calm down.

It was almost like two different experiences were happening at once. On one hand, I was engaged with the movie. I would cry at emotional parts. Laugh at funny parts. Grip my armrest at intense flying parts. However, there was this other emotional experience that wasn’t congruent to the moment. The depth of emotion didn’t fit the moment. I mean, the movie was great, but not to the point of an emotional breakdown. 

I was able to keep it together until the end of the movie, but I knew that as soon as it was over, I was going to unravel. I stood up and one of my friends asked me if I liked it. I had to turn around and walk out, holding back the sobs. We got to the hallway and the same thing happened when another friend asked the same question. I got to within 20 feet of the doors to exit outside and a third friend asked if I was okay. I barely got out the words, “I’m not sure what’s going on, but I’ll tell you when I do.” As soon as I exited to the sidewalk, the waterworks started. Deeply, loudly I started to cry. Maybe even wail. I wept like this for about five minutes. During this time the phrase, “my childhood” came to mind. I went back to my friends and we headed off to go play darts. 

I talked through it with them and this is the emotional aircraft carrier I landed on.

The depth of emotion that was coming up could only be connected back to my childhood. There wasn’t any single emotion I could identify; it was just a lot of emotion. At the time of my life when I was regularly watching Top Gun, I was also going through potentially the most emotionally difficult time in my narrative. My parents were divorced, I was a teenager and I had no way of making sense of the emotional things happening in the world around me.

So during this time of my life, I just stuffed down every emotion I had. All of them except for anger that is. All of my sadness I poured into medicating with pornography and masturbation. I numbed out with girlfriends to hide my loneliness. At 14, I lost my virginity and started using drugs and alcohol to not feel the shame, pain, and fear. I couldn’t celebrate the joys of life because they were largely overshadowed by pain and disappointment. I loved my family. They loved me. But it didn’t resolve the brokenness that was there. 

A synecdoche (sin-NEK-de-kee) is a figure of speech in which a term or part of something is used to refer to the whole, or vice versa. Some examples of synecdoches are “suits” for businessmen, “wheels” for cars, “boots” for soldiers, etc. It’s something that immediately connects you to something else mentally and emotionally. 

We come in contact with these daily. Most are innocuous but some connect to something much deeper. Some become synonymous with parts of our past or history.

In recovery we run into these as well. There may be a place where your spouse cheated on you and now you can’t think of that city without connecting it with your betrayal. Maybe you experienced abuse as a child and now everytime you walk into a certain room of your house, it is associated with abuse. It could be a song. A name. A color. Really, it could be anything. 

Well, this is what the new Top Gun was for me. It is somehow a direct representation of my teenage years. And I can tell you, the emotion that had been stuffed down for all these years needed to come out. Weeping that day didn’t ruin my life. Everything isn’t sunshine and rainbows. However, I’m glad I have been putting in years of work so that I let the emotion out when it showed up. 

When you bump into one of the synecdoches in your life and you start to feel emotion that isn’t connected to the moment, ask yourself, “What am I feeling?” Don’t brush it aside. You might need to excuse yourself for a few minutes. Or if you're in the middle of a great movie, you might want to wait until the credits before you let it out. But please, LET IT OUT. 

I don’t know if the new Top Gun will do this for you, but it’s a great movie either way.

The views, opinions, and ideas expressed in this blog are those of the author alone and do not reflect an official position of Pure Desire Ministries, except where expressly stated.