Why I Should Never Be Left Home Alone

Taylor is at a super important work conference this week, which means I have the house to myself.

For other, more functional human beings, this might mean a certain sense of freedom – a refuge from the standard routine and an opportunity to indulge.

For non-functional human beings (READ: psychopaths; Susie), this week means obsessive, distraction-geared housecleaning, replacing meals with wheat thins and Kraft singles, and staying up late sobbing over Disney movies in my underwear.

Secret’s out, guys: I’m kind-of a loser.

My pathetic lonely escapades momentarily set aside, though, have you ever actually re-watched Disney movies as an adult? I just saw Pirates of the Caribbean for the first time in a good few years – and a small detail I had previously forgotten was that at the end, (spoiler alert!) Captain Barbossa dies.

This wouldn’t be such a big deal except that his whole plight as a character – no less, the PLOT of the entire movie – was that he was living this half-life as an undead skeleton pirate guy, trying to pay the dues on his cursed existence and re-join the living.

“For too long I’ve been parched of thirst and unable to quench it. Too long I’ve been starving to death and haven’t died. I feel nothing. Not the wind on my face… Nor the spray of the sea…. Nor the warmth of a woman’s flesh.”

…And literally moments after he finally gains life and feeling back, practically simultaneously as he resurfaces into human consciousness and emotion… he gets shot! And his final words are “I feel… cold.” As in, he is finally capable of physical sensation again, what he’s been thirsting for and seeking out for YEARS… and his first/last feeling is one of chill and pain. Of being shot in the freaking stomach by his former co-pirate.

…I mean, WHAT?! This is a kid’s movie?! Sure sure, he’s the bad guy, we’re not supposed to care… but that’s some intensely deep stuff right there. That is legitimately depressing – and not in a Disney depressing-but-still-a-happy-ending kinda way, like when the winds change and Mary Poppins leaves to go help another family. I’m talking serious, perspective-altering, go-sit-in-my-room-and-listen-to-Nirvana-and-write-in-my-journal, I-need-to-contemplate-the-meaning-of-life-now kind of depressing.

And it’s even worse because I have a little sister who loves this movie. And I just couldn’t help it: I watched Barbossa die wide-eyed, imagining my innocent baby sis absorbing this scene. When I first envisioned Christianne watching this transpire – Christianne, whose bare, chubby legs I can still see waddling around the living room, who shrieked in terror at Disneyland whenever we came within a 12-foot radius of anyone in costume – I couldn’t help it. I caught myself thinking, “Does she even know what that means? Does she even know what death is?”

Which is a testament to just how warped my mind actually has actually become – because I obviously have no comprehension of the developmental progression of a human brain. I must have been about 14 when this movie came out, which is the exact same age my sister is now – and moreover the movie is rated PG-13, so the experts in Hollywood obviously thought that was age-appropriate material for someone just like her.

But I apparently suffer from the same delusional disease as most adults – that is, thinking that I was so much older at her age. Surely I wasn’t so small and fragile and little-sister-y when I was 14, right? I was different. Totally mature and more than capable of comprehending this completely macabre movie ending.

…Wasn’t I?

But the fact that I, at 24 years old, gasped when this happened on the screen… leads me to believe that people a full decade younger than I am are probably not emotionally ready to process it.

…But then again, considering that while Taylor is gone I have every intention of sleeping with all the lights in the house on, maybe my conception of maturity is skewed.