Love, Honestly

I just got done watching the movie Love, Actually. I think I've seen in three times in the same number of years, mostly because I have a weak spot for any movie that includes Hugh Grant or Alan Rickman or Colin Firth, and so the combination of the three into two and a half hours of a pleasantly lit, saccharine romantic comedy is too great a pleasure for me to turn down when the opportunity presents itself.

I remember crying the last two times I watched it. The first, in the theaters with The Husband in 2003, holding his hand and sniffling a little as all the plot threads worked together into the wholly unrealistic, but incredibly satisfying ending. The second time on the floor of my living room, a box of Kleenex on my knees and a cat on my lap, the picture of a sad, lonely, recently single girl with too much time and access to expanded cable television on the weekends.

This time, nearly six months removed from Le Separacion and in the comfort of my parents' Christmas Bedazzled den, I watched the movie with a sort of clinical detachment that surprised me. I smiled at the funny parts and I took note of the pithy aphorisms about love and relationships that one of the main characters, a ten year old boy, passed on to his recently widowed father, but on the whole I wasn't moved this time. I could blame my familiarity with the story arc and the late hour of the night, but truthfully, I think I saw it through a different pair of eyes, and I'm kind of relieved about that.

One of the main themes of the movie is that on Christmas, you absolutely must tell the truth. In this case, several of the main characters in the ensemble cast face their own reality about the state of their love lives, and whether that included storybook romance, a failing marriage, or the absence of romantic love in the wake of family or professional obligations. Ultimately (and I don't really consider this a plot spoiler because you can see the ending from a mile away but if you haven't seen the movie and still really want to, then skip the next sentence), every one of the characters ended up with the ones they loved the most on Christmas Eve.

I thought it was interesting what a dichotomy the movie painted between the "winners" and "losers" in love, though. The ones who found romantic love--or even just the prospect of getting laid--were absolutely triumphant at the movie's end...backed by a soundtrack of soaring strings and featured leaping into the arms of their significant other to applause and cheers from the crowds around them. The ones who had lost, according to the movie, were left alone, having chosen the needs of a family member over a potential relationship, or realizing that their unrequited love would never be, well, requited. In the end, those characters were essentially cut out of the plot resolution, left alone with their dinner for one on Christmas Eve, or reduced to extra status in the crowds, smiling wistfully as our heroes and heroines are reunited. By the end of the movie, the message was pretty straightforward: pursue romantic love at all costs, because if you don't (even if it means you did the right thing) you will lose out for another year. Act fast, tell the truth on Christmas, and make sure those strings are playing for you.

And as I watched that, and considered the overall lesson of the movie, a dawning sense of absolute relief washed over me as I realized I don't buy into this anymore! I think maybe the urge to grab a Kleenex and a pint of Ben and Jerry's over a movie like this used to be so overwhelming because I completely agreed with the idea of romantic love or being wanted or needed in that glorious Hollywood sense being the utter zenith of maintaining self-worth. That, above all else, it was more important to just be in some sort of romantic relationship and desired by someone...anyone at all...than to actually make myself into someone who could be alone and happy as well as not alone and happy, and I know that all of this is like Sally Jessie Raphael Self-Help 101 stuff and you're sitting there sort of cringing that I'm even having this epiphany and writing about it like no one else has ever had this epiphany in the world before, but I assure you I'm not. It just feels really good when you finally, finally get it. Does that make sense?

Anyway.

I don't think I would've made this realization if I hadn't been having two conversations simulataneously with two friends who I consider to be very wise. Within the same hour, one had reminded me that life cannot be lived as a sprint...that all the changes and improvements and transitions we inevitably must undergo cannot be accomplished quickly, or they will have to be fixed and redone over and over again. The other, listening to me complain about the surprising lack of fun and brand new friends and fabulous shoes in my newly single life, reminded me that this would be a good time to relax, take a break from my insta-resurrection of my social life, and fix the things about myself that were broken, but that I couldn't see for all the wreckage of my marriage that had been laying around for so long. Both fantastic ideas, and both tremendously helpful in the last two weeks as I took my little self-mandated breather and tried to figure out my next move.

So, if on Christmas...the most romantic holiday of the whole year...if I had to stage my own Hollywood moment of truth and run breathlessly into a room, or into an airport and stop in front of the people who have inspired crushes, or attraction, and maybe even love...if I had to use this one night to tell them each the truth, I would say these things:

I have no business being ready yet, but when I am ready, I would just like you to know that I have always liked you, and I respect you, and when I think about you I think "I admire him in a Victorian sense" and then I laugh because I know you would get why it's funny, too. And if you ever wanted to see a movie, or go to dinner, or do something that didn't end with both of us bolting for our cars at the end of the evening like two strangers, I'd really like that.

I really like that we're "special to one another", because I don't think I tell you how much I like you as often as you tell me. But I know that your attraction lies in who you think I could be if I'd just work hard enough, and not who I am now. And the truth is, I kind of like who I am now. I know I could be better, but I don't think that it's fair for you to discount me because of how I look. So I just wanted you to know that I like you just the way you are, and I wish you felt the same way.

I think you know you are my dearest friend in all the world, and there's nothing that can really numb that for me. That's why I can say ILYAIKWTM each and every day. So we're okay. Even when it hurts.

I guess I could say all those things. More even, to the people who have touched my life in smaller, less charged ways. Because the one truly valid point of that movie is that love doesn't have to always be big. Sometimes it's quiet, and sometimes it's just being kind to a stranger who won't even get the chance to reciprocate. But those above things...as nice as they would be to say to the right people at the right time would only foster the kind of love that makes you want to hold someone's hand if it were being splashed across a huge silver movie screen. In real life, though, I'm afraid that kind of honesty is just the stuff that would make another person cringe, because love can't happen in 104 minutes. It takes time. It takes patience. It takes the ridiculous cliched love of self to even begin to foster a healthy romance between two people.

But if I were going to be perfectly honest, Christmas honest even, to the rest of you? I'd have to say that the idea of someday far in the future getting to tell the truth to the great love of my life and seeing it returned in his eyes? I secretly still think that'd be pretty incredible.

Especially if Alan Rickman were somehow involved.