Many of us know how they feel. I know it well. That feeling of emptiness and loneliness. An ache that goes so deep, that just cries out for something to make me happy, something that will make me feel like I, Elisabeth, am a person of value. And, believe me, I have considered many things to try to just find a moment of happiness. Drugs, alcohol, even a night of sex just so I can tell myself that someone wanted to be with me. That voice inside my head that tells me, if only I had this or that, and then torments me when feel like I might have found it; even if it isn’t ideal, it was good in the moment; how could I ever presume I will find anything like it again? How can I let it go?

When I finally came to think about why I didn’t like the movie, I was surprised by how much I identified with Jack and Ennis. I might not be a cowboy, I might not be gay, but I do know what it is like to long for happiness, to search for anything that will help me to feel it, to fear letting go of anything that could be the key to it, maybe, possibly, if I just hold onto it long enough…

Throughout Brokeback Mountain Jack and Ennis search for that same happiness. They seek it in ideals by marrying their wives and starting families. They keep trying to hold onto that glimpse of it in each other. But in the end, neither one does the trick. Some may say if they had gotten together, Jack and Ennis would’ve been happy…but all I can think about is how much they held each other back. Rather then binding them together in love, all their relationship seemed to do was bind them to lives of unhappiness.

Aching for happiness is not fun. Trying to figure out how to find happiness, even just a functional state of satisfaction and purpose, is not easy. Like Jack and Ennis, I have struggled with those brief tastes of that happiness, tastes I want to go back to, tastes that can grab a hold of me and freeze me where I am in fear that I have found my only option for happiness and better not let it go. But I have also been fortunate enough to come out on the other side. To deal with the pain of letting go, of realizing that one certain person, one specific job, or one distinct life path will never result in my happiness.

While I still don’t claim to know exactly what happiness is, my gut feeling is that it is about something bigger, about knowing that I am a part of something bigger, that value is about something bigger, and that happiness need not depend on my circumstances. I struggle with my belief in that bigger something, in God, in that unconditional love that is so hard to comprehend in world so messed up. Yet even amidst this struggle, this pursuit of happiness and this search for value, I cannot help but believe that even though relationships and circumstances will be a part of our lives, the only way we will ever be able to fully experience love and value in this life is if we are able to first find freedom in a value and purpose that is bigger than just the here and now.
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