Last Saturday, I stayed home on a Saturday night to just have a chance to recharge my batteries. Jake went out with a couple of his friends and I opted to stay in. I went through my DVDs,, which are mainly from high school, deciding what movie I could cross off my list and ended up on Hercules.
I wasn't very cool in high school. I was nice and most people liked me even if they were torturing me about my chronic acne or about how they thought I was gay or how I wasn't athletic and I went to church and my clothes were a little dorky. I didn't go to rad parties and I didn't have my first Budweiser until the college dorms. My Saturday nights were spent with my mom and Trading Spaces until like 10 PM and then it was either Fight Club or Peter Pan or Royal Tenenbaums or Hercules. And ice cream.
So Hercules is the story of a boy destined for greatness who just doesn't fit into his current situation but through hard work can achieve his full potential. I remember watching the movie on my parent's big screen while everyone slepy and truly feeling every lyric of "I Can Go The Distance". Knowing that I was just stuck in a shell and some day I would rise up and get out and be something better and bigger. Hercules isn't the typical hero of every nerdy teenage boy who loves emo music and clothes from the thrift store. cc for a gay guy who just felt like he never fit in, Hercules symbolized breaking out of a shell and evolving.
Standing 10 years out from high school, it melted my heart to watch Hercules again. To remind my self of the wide eyed spirit of wonder. To put myself in the body of the same guy who read "The Great Gatsby" religiously and identified with every lyric in Kelly Clarkson's "Breakaway". To stand as an adult with a good job and a good man and a good home and a good dog and realize this is man I was so excited to become when I watched Hercules.
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