Let it go (or why concealing your feelings always ends with your homeland frozen)

Don't let them in, don't let them see
Be the good girl you always have to be.
Conceal don't feel, don't let them know.
--Frozen

(Spoilers present.  But since I'm probably the last blogger human on Earth to see the movie, we're probably all okay here.  Right?  Right.)

The Easter bunny brought my girls Frozen.

Whoa.

I knew a little about the movie, but not enough to prepare me for the emotional reaction I had to it.

Ever since she is a little girl, Elsa is taught to hide her powers.  Think about that for a second.  Her POWERS.  Not her weaknesses.  Not her flaws.  Her iciness is what makes her special, what makes her amazing, what makes her beautiful.

But she's so afraid of it.  So ashamed.

But she learns, like we all do, that what we resist persists.  And the more she tries to fight it, the less she can.  The more she refuses to accept who she is, the more it comes out and controls her life.  The more alone she is.

Until she can't hide it anymore. Until it comes out, despite all her best efforts, and everything falls apart.

(Sound like anyone you know?  Oh, you too?)

And what she does is brave.  She stands on her own and says that she isn't turning back, that she isn't afraid anymore, that she accepts who she is.

But everything is still frozen.

In the end, it is her sister's love, her unconditional love despite all the mistakes, all the ice, despite any injuries Elsa had done her, that breaks through to her.  That makes her understand.

But Anna loved her all along.  Anna sat outside her door for years, begging Elsa to let herself be loved.  But as long as she wouldn't admit who she was, as long as she stayed inside, Elsa couldn't accept that love.  She didn't think she deserved it.  She thought, if she really knew.

(Yes.  Yes.  Me too, Elsa.  Me too.)

And in the end it isn't Anna's love that saves her and everyone else.  It's her own.  It is when she realizes that she can love herself that everything thaws.

But, the movie makes sure we realize, she still is who she is.  She still has ice in her.  But it's beautiful.  It's a gift.  Like it always was.

I'm deep.  I'm dark.  I'm sensitive.  I'm fragile.  I feel things deeply.  I overthink and overanalyze.

And I love that.  I don't need to hide that.  I don't want to be afraid of my power anymore.

The cold never bothered me anyway.