The Confetti Sprinkled On Our Lives

When I think about things that bring me joy, confetti is absolutely at the top of the list.

There's just something so undeniably magical about it.

Anyone who knows me knows I melt into a puddle of excitement when a confetti cannon pops off at the function—and you bet I will reach out and try to catch as many of those vibrant, shimmering squares as humanly possible.

As those pieces of (hopefully biodegradable) paper gracefully graze my skin - it feels like a wholesome reminder to embrace my inner child and celebrate life as I watch the world through this dazzling sea of color.

So, now that I've ranted a bit about literal scraps of paper, you're probably wondering why I would write a blog post about confetti. Well, other than the fact it's freaking awesome, I found a very cool analogy I've been wanting to share.

I started writing this last October, and now, suddenly... it's April. Clearly, I've been putting this off for a while. But a recent experience really pushed me to finish writing, so... here it is! I hope you enjoy it!

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Looking back, 2023, for me, was a year filled with an excruciating numbness. I rarely did anything that made me happy; it was all work and no play. Seriously.

I worked 14-hour days and most weekends. At times, I didn't leave the house for weeks sometimes. I'd curl up in bed after work and watch TV until I fell asleep. So, after running out of new Netflix shows—I decided to rewatch one of my favorites, The Haunting of Hill House because it was ~spooky season~ (remember I said I started writing this in October lol?)

The director, Mike Flanagan, is absolutely brilliant. One of my favorite elements of this series is how he personifies ghosts as more than just scary apparitions: they are authentic, horrifying human experiences. He says they are things like "secrets, anxiety, fear, guilt—even a wish."

In the finale of Hill House, Nell (my favorite character) delivers a hauntingly beautiful monologue, and she says one line in particular that stuck with me.

"Our moments fall around us like rain, or snow... or confetti."

So, naturally, when Nell talked about one of my favorite things in the world, I smiled (through tears because I am a crybaby). After the TV went black and I was left alone with my thoughts, I sat in bed for quite a while, staring at the ceiling.

I thought about this figurative confetti—these moments and people who have touched my life. I thought about how some of these people I gave so much love to are now "ghosts". Because ghosts are not exclusive to death, we become ghosts whenever we are no longer a part of someone's life.

And I think this is both a beautiful and terrifying thing.

I thought about how the years, days, and minutes seemed to have sped up so, so quickly; suddenly, I am 26 and don't have everything figured out.

It felt unfair that time didn't stop and wait for me to learn from my mistakes before I made them.

It felt unfair that I couldn't simply bottle up my favorite moments and return whenever I wanted to relive them.

And, of course, I thought about how to write about this in a blog post.

While looking online for Nell's quotes for this piece, I found something very special. Mike Flanagan (iconically) has a Tumblr where he answers fans' questions about his work. Someone asked him about a different line from Nell's monologue "What does 'the rest is confetti' mean to you and in the context it was used in Hill House?"

Flanagan replied, "Okay, here we go. Buckle up for a long read."

I highly recommend you read the whole post, especially if you're a fan of the show, but I'll give you my highlights:

"Our moments fall around us like…" Nell said, and I recall sitting back and trying to find the words.

"Rain," for certain, but there was something too uniform about that. The moments of life as I experienced them weren’t that orderly, they weren’t that small. They didn’t fall the same way. Some sailed by, fast and unremarkable, while others lingered in front of me, twisting and stretching. So it was a good word, but not the right word. I left it on the page though.

"Snow" was my next attempt. Better, in that I imagined the snow blowing in the wind, swirling and dancing and feeling more organic. More chaotic. More like life. But for some reason, the word that stuck with me, the word I felt Nell Crain would connect with was…

"Confetti."

And that was because I was thinking not of Victoria Pedretti at this point, but of Violet McGraw.

Violet played Young Nell, and I wondered what she might have said if she experienced time this way. As an adult, Nell was despairing. Nell was overwhelmed. But as a child… there was an innocence to the word. There was a joy to the word.

I imagined moments falling around her, this little girl with the big smile and the wide eyes. Her moments would be colorful. They would be of different shapes and sizes, some falling fast and some falling slow, flipping and turning and dancing in the air, independent of the others. Sparkling, whirling, doing lazy summersaults as they sauntered down to Earth.

I thought of myself, and of the members of my family. I thought of those we’d lost. I realized what I hoped for them, and for us all, in the end… was to look upon that mosaic of experience, that avalanche of days and minutes and moments… and to smile with some of the joy we had as children.

And this, I thought, was something that gave me hope.

...

This was also how I hoped my life might seem if I was a ghost - a cascade of color and light and shape and movement, something I could dance in.

So Nell smiled and said… "or confetti."

...

"I loved you completely, and you loved me the same," she said, "that’s all." And this was the point I wanted the most to make. That at the end of our life, if we can say this about each other, the rest doesn’t matter. The rest is that rainstorm, or that blizzard, that fell around this one central truth, and maybe built itself in piles around it, to the point we lost sight of it along the way.

And I thought again of that little girl, and almost as an afterthought, wrote "The rest is confetti."

...

The line, for me, represents a lot of things.

It's about trying to find and hold onto joy, even in the grips of despair. It’s about the way the moments of our lives aren’t linear, not really, and how we may be unable to understand them as we exist in their flurry. It’s about finding hope, innocence and forgiveness in the final reckoning. And it’s about how, outside of our love for each other, the rest is just… well, it’s fleeting. It’s colorful. It’s overwhelming. It’s blinding. It’s dancing. And, if we look at it right, it’s beautiful. But it’s also light. It’s tinsel. It flits and dances and falls and fades, it’s as light as air.

The rest is the stuff that falls around us, and flits away into nothing.

It’s the love that stays.

Okay, so I'll need you to take a minute and think about that.

Then reread it because...wow.

Also, keep in mind that I cannot compete with Mike Flanagan, so I'm very sorry you have to go back to my lowly thoughts after reading that gorgeousness.

So, after I read Flanagan's response to this question (I sobbed, of course), I sat in my room, bombarded with contemplation. I thought about how confetti is unlike the rain or snow he described—confetti sticks to you long after the storm is over—literally.

I cannot tell you how many pieces of confetti I have found months or even YEARS after an event, crumpled up in a dusty corner somewhere or stuck to the bottom of a shoe.

But I thought about how beautiful that was. I was in awe of the symbolism Flanagan describes. That those people, places, and things stay with us even long after the storm is gone.

We all shed little fragments of ourselves that stick to others and leave an undeniable mark. They become like colorful little portals into a life once lived—a familiar scent, a shared song, a word or phrase I stole from someone I once loved that slips off my tongue.

These things all carry traces of those who helped shape me—for better or worse.

Because then... I thought, 'Is it just the love that stays?'

Some confetti pieces we scatter land gently, like a whispered compliment, a moment of support, or acts of kindness. They linger and become unexpected flickers of warmth that remind someone of your presence long after the moment has passed.

Some pieces, though, crash into others much less gracefully, like careless words or broken promises—or those "fears, anxieties, guilt, and wishes" Flanagan describes, too.

Those leave us with a deserting feeling of uneasiness—a hole that aches to be filled. And maybe even anger that someone dared to leave those shards behind for you to clean up.

As my thoughts turned into anger at those who wronged me, I had an introspective moment.

I thought about how I've been the "ghost" who has left those jagged scraps of myself behind that someone I loved was forced to keep. Those undesirable bits, I imagine, cling to the corners of their minds, giving them a distorted image of an incomplete, unhealed version of myself.

And, oh, how I wish I could rewind, gather those scraps, and replace them with pieces of the radiant version of myself I have become.

But perhaps those fractured remnants hold value, too. Like a shattered mirror, they offer a warped yet honest reflection of who we once were and a roadmap to who we want to be.

Because the human experience is just so messy, isn't it?

We have all left behind a trail of broken things, often unintended casualties of our growth.

We are only human. We will break things—over and over again.

Yet, these flaws are just a chapter, not the whole story. Each season of life throws us unique storms, molding us and leaving behind pieces that echo those challenges. There's a strange beauty in acknowledging our shortcomings—they can fuel an inner desire to create a brighter future.

These reflections have left me with this aspiration: May the confetti I scatter always be loving, supportive, and radiant, and may it always outnumber the fractured pieces. Imperfections are inevitable, but I choose to be mindful.

I hope to catch those damaged pieces before they fall—to mend them with understanding and growth—to sparkle with a light so bright that even those I am now a ghost can still feel my loving presence in life without me. To make sure that, as Flanagan says—"it's the love that stays."

In this sense, confetti is so much more than little pieces of paper. It culminates the perfectly imperfect human experience—a celebration of life in all its messy, chaotic beauty.

I acknowledge that my life is a luminous rainbow of emotions and experiences—some of which have yet to find me.

And how exciting is that thought? I have not even experienced all the beautiful things life will gift me.

Each piece—a person, memory, or lesson learned—holds a place in this ever-shifting kaleidoscope of color that is my life.

After all, impermanence is a fundamental truth of existence. Nothing in this life is genuinely ours for the keeping; everything is fleeting.

And I think that is both a beautiful and terrifying thing.

But we will carry these fragments within us, forever woven into the fabric of our being.

As Flanagan aptly describes humans as "whirlwinds of moments,"—it's only fitting to imagine that we leave a trail of confetti wherever we go.

Thank you for being here.

Yours Truly,

Alex