** THIS POST CONTAINS SOME SPOILERS FOR "THE HANDMAID'S TALE"**
Sunday night, I watched the first two episodes of Season 3 of "The Handmaid's Tale" on Bravo Canada, broadcast back to back. As a bit of a summary: Emily succeeds in escaping to Canada with June & Nick's baby, Nicole. They wind up living in an apartment in Toronto's "Little America" district with June's husband, Luke; her best friend/former Handmaid/Jezebel, Moira; and another former Handmaid that Luke has befriended, Erin.
All of them have been traumatized in some way by their experiences in Gilead. Moira appears to have found some solace & purpose in helping other former Handmaids deal with what's happened to them and adjust to their new life in Canada.
Emily seems (understandably) dazed, and is hesitant to contact her wife, Sylvia, who was able to leave Gilead for Montreal with their son during the early days of the new regime.
“I’ve seen a lot of release reunions and they’re not always storybook endings,” Moira tells Emily in episode 2. "But nobody’s talking about happily ever after, just after.”
I pondered that line over & over as I tried to go to sleep. (I always need to take some time to wind down after "The Handmaid's Tale" ends... I'm usually just too keyed up to go to bed right away!) I don't live in Gilead (yet?!!) & haven't experienced the kind of trauma the Handmaids have... but infertility, pregnancy loss & involuntary childlessness can be traumatic experiences in their own way.
My own experiences have kind of put a damper on my belief in fairy tale endings/"happily ever after." I'm not sure there is such a thing. No one -- or very, very few people, anyway -- gets through life without some measure of loss and grief and sadness. It's called being human. And some of us get a little more than our fair share than others.
Don't get me wrong. I do think it's entirely possible to be happy, to live a happy life, to find joy in life again after trauma. But I think it's unrealistic to think we can or will be happy all the time. And finding happiness again doesn't just happen, or happen overnight. It takes time, and it takes some work on our part. We can't always do it alone, either -- sometimes, we need some help. And when you're just in the initial stages of dealing with your grief, "happily ever after" can seem like a pretty impossible goal. Sometimes we need to focus on taking small steps to make life better here and now, before we can tackle the scary big picture stuff of "ever after" (i.e., the future).
As an article in Bustle summarizes, "No matter how Emily and Sylvia's reunion goes, their "after" has begun, and that's what's important."
Thoughts? (Did you watch?)
I'm travelling, so haven't been able to watch, but I read your post anyway. I'm like you now - I don't believe in happily ever after, and I'm not sure I ever did. It's a concept based on a fairytale, after all. But I like your (or Bustle's conclusion) - it is beginning the "after" that is important, rather than hiding from it.
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