Lost and Resilient

Trutwin, Madeline

Undergraduate Honors Thesis

Lost and Resilient Public Deposited

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Citeable URL: https://scholar.colorado.edu/concern/undergraduate_honors_theses/gm80hw79p

Abstract

In this project, I will reveal the delicate nature of childhood through a film adaptation of the poem “Walmart” that I wrote about my upbringing. The poem highlights the importance of how fun and invested my dad was while my mom was not and how that would impact me when my dad left the picture. My inspiration came from the fun memories of my dad taking me to Walmart as a kid to look at the pet frogs they used to sell and how I never shared a memory like that with my mom.

I was born an only child to two unemployed parents who met in the Navy nearly a decade before. For the first year of my life, I lived in a small house with them, but my family had to move because of financial reasons. This was the first of ten moves, all in Colorado, that I would experience between my parents. There was even a point where both my parents were homeless while they raised me. Growing up, I had little experience with stability, and all I could do was adapt. This was especially true when my dad had left.

I have never been able to express how I truly felt about my parents until I wrote the poem “Walmart.” It is not as easy as categorizing the bad parent as the one who left and the good parent as the one who stayed. There is so much more nuance to it than that. For this project, I intend to underscore the heartbreak of the trauma of my dad leaving as a way to heal from the pain and for my audience to have something to connect to through their own familial experiences and trauma.

Like my poem, the film is an autobiography that juxtaposes how life felt with each parent while growing up. I rely heavily on symbolism, such as using a McDonald’s Happy Meal, Fanta, and frogs to commemorate the core memories I had with my dad while growing up. Additionally, I use mirrors in the film's beginning, middle, and end as a triple to underscore my journey of growth between the past, present, and future. The reflections serve as a separate storyline in that they represent fate, with everything happening for a reason, and that the future is promising no matter what is shown in each mirror. Effectively, the mirrors are a character in themselves as an all-seeing being, God as you will. The film ends with a younger version of myself walking through a mirror to meet my future self, proving that I will be okay despite the hardships I endured as a little girl.

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