They went in and out of each other's minds without any effort.

As I sit on the bus, staring blindly out of the window to my right, I grit my teeth as I struggle to draw back tears. We have just watched The Hours in our film studies lecture, and I feel like I might break down thinking about it. Some of you may think that's silly, to cry at a film, but yeah, I do that. A lot. Don't judge me. This one in particular has upset me, and I'm not sure why. In case you don't already know, it is a film based on Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway and how it affects the lives of different women, including Woolf herself. I haven't actually read it, (yet! It's on my list!) but I knew in advance, it's main focal point is suicide. For anyone who hasn't read it or seen the film and are now looking on with angered faces and/or confused expressions, this isn't a major spoiler. It's an obvious fact from the start, so cm your little selves down. 

To say The Hours is depressing, is something of an understatement. Although, it is a funny kind of depressing. In parts, it's all so trivial, but that's intentional. The whole point is, I think, that the drama is there is no drama. It's a perfectly normal day, a perfectly normal exchange of interactions. Everything is in place and just-so-normal. And then I guess the point is, nothing ever is as clean-cut as it appears, and while from an observer's eyes, everything may look fine and dandy, but, as the age old saying goes, nobody knows what goes on behind closed doors, and no one ever really can understand the extent of someone else's suffering. That upsets me. The fact that sometimes, it appears, even if you can and want to help someone, you might have already lost them.

I don't like to think that. It's too depressing in my mind. "My whole life is based on the theory that people can, and do, change" as my on-screen heroine Violet Turner frequently says on Private Practise. I like to think she's right. Nothing is final, until the end, so until then, everything matters. The flick of a pen or the cut of a knife. The casual smile from one stranger to another. Every breath. So don't stop making the effort until you physically can't. You never know when someone's counting on you to do just that.