garden state is a really neat film written and directed by a cutie named zach braff. he's about my age and plays one of the main characters in a creative movie that takes place in new jersey. there's just a lot of stuff in there that i can relate to.

he talks about the point in your life when you realize that the house you grew up in isn't really your home anymore. all of a sudden, even though you have someplace where you put your shit, that idea of home is gone, and you feel like you can never get it back. and you won't have that feeling again until you create a new idea of home for yourself, for the family you start. he misses the idea of it...

braff's character finds love unexpectedly and it's like he's found home again, feeling so incredibly safe with her. and so the movie basically shows his transformation from a numb, emotionally closed-off individual to a person who embraces uncertainty and spontaneity and the hope of love with a girl named sam, played by natalie portman.

he also begins to reconcile with his father, and says that what he wants more than anything else in the world is to feel something again, even if it's pain. he's waited 26 years for something else to start, but now he's gonna embrace life because this is it, because it's everything there is. it's all there is. he knows that he might not be as happy as his father always dreamed they'd be, but for the first time, he wants them to allow themselves to be whatever it is that they are, and that'll be better.

it just struck a chord inside of me, and i sense a lot of parallels between andrew and myself. it gives me reason to believe that if i could only find an amazing person who's still out there, where i am and what i'm doing would lose so much of the importance that they have right now.

i want to embrace it if and when he does come.