Leaving Home for "Infinity and Beyond!"

Two recent movies, geared towards very different audiences, hightlight in similarly tender ways the complex emotions associated with the process of preparing to leave home.

The plot of the animated hit "Toy Story 3" revolves around the key dilemma that all emerging adults must encounter as they prepare to depart-what to bring along and what to leave behind. In the movie, Andy has to figure out what he's going to take with him to college, and initially selects one favorite toy, Woody, while bagging up all of the others for storage. But the soon-to-be-abandoned toys cleverly and courageously band together in their effort to avoid exile, and, after numerous harrowing encounters, remain united and survive. Andy eventually resolves the dilemma by choosing to leave all of his toys behind and turn them over to a young child, whose imagination imbues his old (and her new) playthings with renewed life and purpose.

I have heard from many adult patients and friends that even though the movie, like the previous Toy Story films, is geared towards children, it still struck a very deep emotional chord. Many of them of course remembered taking their younger children to the first "Toy Story" film, in 1995, and to "Toy Story 2", in 1999. They now found themselves, a full 15 years after the franchise began, in the position of preparing to launch those same children, who as young adults, are busily revving their engines on the runway of life and preparing to soar away. The prospect of saying goodbye to a child-and to the phase of life when one is most necessary and most relevant to one's child-is a profoundly complicated one, indeed, and always entails feelings of wistfulness, melancholy and loss.

Of course, in real life, this dilemma of what to bring along and what to leave behind when we head off requires decision-making that goes well beyond material items. Young adults must decide which aspects of their family life they are going to "take with them"-what they will choose to embody, honor, cherish and expand upon-and which aspects of their family life they are going to "leave behind", and choose not to prolong or cultivate.

"Toy Story 3" reminds us that to move onto the next stage of our lives, we can't drag everything along with us, or we will wind up handicapped and encumbered, unable to maneuver successfully forward because of the weight of the past. Evolution requires us to let go-even if what we are letting go of has been meaningful and dear and has sustained us in important ways-so that we can be truly open to new experiences and new possibilities.

"The Kids Are Alright" tells a very different story, but one that illuminates the complexity of the same stage of life explored in "Toy Story 3". The story begins the summer after Joni has graduated from high school and is preparing for college. She and her brother are being raised by their lesbian parents, and the siblings decide to search out the donor whose sperm impregnated each of their respective mothers.

Much of the film explores the connection that the children begin to develop with their hitherto unknown birth father, and the at times disquieting impact that this burgeoning connection has on their relationship with their mothers, and on their mothers' relationship with each other. But it is clear that the narrative backdrop is the family's struggle to re-equilibrate and reconfigure in the face of the eldest child's impending departure. As is always the case, much personal and interpersonal grief and loss has to be endured as one important phase of family life concludes in preparation for the next one commencing.

The final scenes, centered around dropping Joni off at college, describe with tremendous visual sensitivity the mixture of emotions associated with breaking away from home and beginning to experience independence. Joni and her family enter her bare and empty dorm room, and her mothers immediately begin to take over and direct the moving-in process. Joni, however, asks them to leave and to give her some time to map things out on her own. They agree to back off, and, initially, Joni's countenance displays a self-assured calm as she goes about unpacking her bags and making her bed. However, after a few minutes her face slowly begins to reveal the terror that accompanies separation, and the loneliness that is an inevitable component of independence. Fearing that her family has actually left her behind for good, and done so without even saying goodbye, she dashes outside, only to find that they had simply gone to move their car and were in fact pulling up for their farewell.

The vast landscape of emotions that Joni traverses in those few telescoped moments of her life-from irritation to optimism to panic to relief-are the emotions that all of us must come to terms with as we struggle to separate from what we are familiar with in an effort to cross the border into the world that will eventually define us and ultimately become our own.

Buzz Lightyear's Toy Story catch-phrase, of course is, "To Infinity and Beyond!". When young adults leave the nest for their personal "Infinity", both parent and child have no choice but to contemplate and sort out the infinitely complicated feelings that radiate and endure as long as we remain alive.