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appreciation, beautiful, bittersweet, blame, Bubble, Child, Chirstmas, color, comfort, death, destroyed, died, Dream, emotions, escape, events, failed, false, family, fate, Final Fantasy X, friends, Friendship, Hate, hiding, hope, hospital, Illness, Lesson, lifeconquer, Live, loss, Love, meditation, memory, Moment, moments, music, Parents, Picture, Remember, return, rotting, sacrifice, sad, screen, self sacrifice, Siblings, sorrow, Spira, Story, Suicide, Suteki da ne, Tears, wall, weird
“Listen to my story, this may be our last chance.”
It all started with that sentence in the early 2.000s. The last Christmas where everything seemed fine. Where we were all together. The last time as a family. You two and us four. A fire in the fireplace, a train around the Christmas tree and joyful anticipation in our eyes. Me and my siblings taking turns unwrapping our presents and I got the gift I desired. A game for the PlayStation 2, Final Fantasy X.
Later that day I tried it out and got sucked into the beautiful and mysterious world named Spira. “Listen to my story, this may be our last chance.” And what a story it is. A story about personal growth, emotions, love and self sacrifice. About responsibility and friendship. About loss, hate and overcoming ones sorrow. A story about finding a reason to live and move on, when all seems lost. A story accompanied by a musical score, that stuck with me since then. In the opening the reality and city of Tidus gets destroyed and he gets sucked into a different world, far far in the future. And in some kind of way this was a foreshadowing of things to come in my own reality.
After that Christmas my parents both got psychological treatment in the hospital and my dad moved out. I still remember the moment he told us this. I was playing this game and then he called us all to the dining table. My aunt was there too. He told us, that he will move out, that it would only be temporally, that he would be back on day. That we could visit him and that we would get weekends with him and so on. The situation was weird. The whole year after that Christmas was weird. A bubble, that was slowly bursting, a picture that was loosing its color and rotting away, a dream that was falling apart, a dream that maybe never existed. Someday the dream will end.
I was feeling nothing. That year had grinded down my emotions, my emotions I was now hiding behind a wall deep inside myself. I just wanted to escape that situation, it was hard to endure. I just wanted to go back to my game, escape back into that world, that comforted me. To continue the journey with the characters, whom grow on me. I never really finished that game back then, not in a sense, that I could move on. I watched the ending and I didn’t like it back then. It gave me comfort, that I could always return. Fight a few battles, play a few rounds of blitz, watch some cutscenes at the theater and enjoy the music. A form of meditation.
Over the years I visited Spira many times. The story about self sacrifice stuck with me and when my thoughts grow dark and desperate it encouraged me to walk that path and also consider the ultimate sacrifice. 10 years ago I felt like the dumpster of my families Illness, like a vessel for the bad things that had happened. In my eyes it was partly my fault, that all broke apart. I was not an easy child, but today I know, that I was reacting to the behavior of my parents. It was them who failed me and my siblings and it was not me, who failed them. 10 years ago, I thought, if I would end it and sacrifice myself for my family, that it would all come back together. I didn’t live for myself back then and I wouldn’t have died for myself. Today I know, my death would’ve only spread sorrow and tears and would’ve changed nothing in my family. Maybe it would have deepened the trenches, because my parents would had another reason to blame the other party for.
Christmas 2021 I gave myself a present. I bought Final Fantasy X again and played it again. The journey felt familiar and full of emotions, emotions I experienced in this way for the first time while playing this game again. Seeing the characters again felt like meeting old friends. Friends that got you through a tough time. I was amazed by the growth of some characters and how I could relate to the events on screen.
“It would be so easy…to let my fate just carry me away…following this same path my whole life through. But I know…I can’t. What I do, I do…with no regrets.”
“My father… I loved him. So I… I will live with my sorrow, I will live my own life! I will defeat sorrow, in his place. I will stand my ground and be strong. I don’t know when it will be, but someday… I will conquer it. And I will do it without… false hope.“
“Die and be free of pain or live and fight your sorrow! Now is the time to shape your stories! Your fate is in your hands!”
This time I finished the game with a new found appreciation for the story and journey. The ending is bittersweet and sad, but also full of hope. I had to shed some tears. Even if a love is fleeting, there are lessons to be learned, emotions to experience and moments to remember. I will visit this world again, but not to escape, but to enjoy the story and the emotional ride. To hold on for a moment and enjoy the music, like I am doing right now.
Suteki Da Ne? Isn’t it beautiful?
“Wind, and my heart swimming in collected words
Moved by the wind, in through the world.
Clouds, like a voice that we all recognize
Carry the holding future.”
“Moon, on the sky as a trembling heart
Shown on the glass unsteadily.
Stars, shedding tears in an overflowing stream
I see the night all around me.”
“Suteki da ne
Being together, all alone walking hand in hand.
And I want to go to your city
To your home, into your arms.”
“That soul
Inside your body
From those conflicted nights
As from my dreams.”
“Wind died away, and I feel all the words
Led by a gentle illusion.
Clouds are the future that cannot be attained
Told from impossible distance.”
“The moon filled with night as it flowed through your heart
Such faraway reflections.
Stars, ripe like tears, like fruit falls from a tree
I wipe my dreams off the nighttime.”
“Suteki da ne
Being together, all alone walking hand in hand.
And I want to go to your city
To your home, into your arms.”
“To feel your face
The touch of memory
And now that I awake
As from a dream.”
Translation by Distant Worlds II: more music from FINAL FANTASY, released May 1, 2010