As someone who has a December birthday, the end of the year has always enveloped me in a double dose of reflection. Not only for the year that’s come and gone as we anticipate a new calendar to fill with personal ambitions, but also the contemplation that comes with growing one year older within the same timeframe.
Lack of self confidence has always been a barrier in my pursuit of personal growth, but chasing creative endeavors such as writing, podcasting, and playing guitar have helped me build a bridge over my timidity so I’m better able to connect with people. Even so, I’ve found that my insecurities often get the better of me.
I recently had a conversation with a close friend of mine about putting myself out there more, and at one point I said “What am I waiting for?”. As I read that sentence back to myself in my mind, another voice that has meant a lot to me over the years popped into my brain instead of my own. The voice of Julie James.
“What are you waiting for?”
Possibly the most famous line said by Jennifer Love Hewitt in I Know What You Did Last Summer.
Of course, within the context of the film, the line is used in external defiance. She’s being haunted by the events of the past year, and mentally tormented by a killer who had not yet revealed himself to her outside of cryptic notes. When he leaves a disturbing “gift” in the trunk of her car, she’s had enough of being scared. She starts to become proactive about facing her fears and she seeks the knowledge she needs to identify the perpetrator in her life.
To a degree, we can all identify with that struggle. Thankfully, for most of us, our turmoil doesn’t manifest in the form of an evil fisherman with a vendetta. But the sentiment stands. I resonate with a character like Julie because she’s a sweet person who maintains her kindness even as she has to persevere through hardship, and that’s a quality I would like to cultivate within myself.
One of the gifts of being a fan of this franchise for over 25 years is that as I get older and wiser, my perspective on the characters grows more mature. When you’re young you get invested in these likable characters and you’re rooting for them to survive. As you get older, all of those things are still true, but in addition you also have more life experience under your belt and you can more easily find parallels between yourself and the characters that make them feel identifiable and relatable.
In the sequel, I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, we see that Julie is still working through the trauma of the previous year. She’s written in a very human way. She has nightmares, and she’s apprehensive about visiting her hometown, but she’s increased her capacity for handling life’s challenges. She has mace on her keyring, multiple locks on her door, and a means for self defence in her nightstand. She’s prepared for the worst, but at the same time, she doesn’t let her worries get in the way of her being able to live her life. She still goes to classes, bonds with her friends, and tries to maintain a long distance relationship.
Julie and her friends “win a vacation”, and in true horror fashion, it ends up being a ruse so she can be taken somewhere secluded to face the fisherman once again. But the big takeaway for me prior to that point is that she was willing to take a chance on doing something fun with her friends even though it was outside of her normal routine and comfort zone.
Near the end of the film, there’s an impactful scene where she sees a lineup of graves, one of which is empty, and her name is ominously written on the tombstone above it. It’s meant to be foreboding and threatening, but it’s here where Julie’s light shines brightest. She defiantly shouts “my grave stays empty!”, ready to face her adversary head on.
I take a lot of strength from that. She goes through so many horrors over the course of two films, and yet she’s still able to maintain hope, self worth, and integrity. It doesn’t come without struggle, but it’s worth fighting for. And it makes me feel like the problems and insecurities I have, albeit on a much smaller scale, are manageable.
I should write more even if I’m insecure about whether or not what I have to say is valuable or has any meaning. I should share recordings of songs I play even if I don’t feel like I “look cool enough”, or feel too out of shape, to put myself on camera.
Putting myself out there is worth it. Maintaining my own kindness, especially when I’m hard on myself, is worth it.
My biggest accomplishment over this past year has been allowing myself to be vulnerable in front of people I care about, and flourishing in communities where I would have otherwise been a wallflower. There are still a lot of things I need to work on, and things I want to improve, but consider this when you look ahead to your own goals for the new year:
Much like Julie, you know what you did last summer, but what do you want your life to look like next summer?
