I’m not proud of this. The name for Making the Middle Count came from a Sandra Bullock movie. A quick search of the quote from the header will reveal the movie is, “Hope Floats,” a late-nineties rom-dram about starting over. Nope, not proud of this.
It wasn’t the first name to come to mind or the fifth. I thought of many names and crumpled them up into the waste basket in my brain. (Anyone else picture that Spongebob scene? No? Okay, moving on.) After a couple of hours, I was stuck on, “Coloring with Chaos.” To me, it depicted the attempt to create art regardless of the factors that surround you. It was meaningful, short, had alliteration and gave a nod to Belle and Sebastian–one of the bands that streamed from my purple iPod nano in middle school. So why didn’t I go with that? Two reasons.
1. The line is referenced in 500 Days of Summer. Don’t get me wrong, I love the movie. I own it. It has a great message, great actors, and a great soundtrack. The problem came shortly after the movie gained popularity. Many girls wanted to be as irresistible as Summer Finn. The line, “Color my life with the chaos of trouble,” quickly became the caption of one too many profile pictures. Most of these girls had never heard The Boy with the Arab Strap. The song has been tainted ever since.
2. Additionally, I didn’t feel like it was true to me. I’m not really one to feel the chaos. During a stressful situation, I’m pretty chill. I admit I can be dramatic about certain things when I’m bored. However, when it matters, I just take a breath and move forward. Why worry about things I can’t control when I can focus on the things I can?
Feeling defeated, I did what anyone my age would do. I went to pick something to watch on Netflix. Sometimes I do this thing and pick a random movie on a whim. Risky, I know. Looking through, it listed Hope Floats in the Recently Added category. Trusting my love of Practical Magic (another late-nineties S.B. movie), I gave it a chance.
Hope Floats was incredibly cheesy and sometimes unrealistic…So exactly what one would expect from the romance genre. Still, I found myself relating to many aspects and quotes. In the final scenes, Bullock’s character says, “Childhood is what you spend the rest of your life trying to overcome. That’s what momma always says. She says that beginnings are scary, endings are usually sad, but it’s the middle that counts the most. Try to remember that when you find yourself at a new beginning. Just give hope a chance to float up. And it will, too.”
The floating hope part might be too sweet to swallow and makes an awful movie title in my opinion, but the whole thing rings true. At that moment, I realized that quote encompassed exactly what I was going for with this site and my trip. I’m about to start a new beginning, and I have no idea how it will end. All I know is, I’m going to have faith it will work out the way it’s supposed to while enjoying every moment I can.
And that’s how I came up with the name.
Note: I will include a quote or reference in most posts. They will not be random ones I find by searching “travel quotes.” No, they’ll be quotes or phrases I’ve actually read or heard and have impacted me at some point in my life. I hope they bring a little inspiration to your life as they have mine.