The Holiday

i don't know if any of you have seen the movie The Holiday. i've watched it twice this week.
this is how it begins:

i have found almost everything ever written about love to be true
Shakespeare said "journeys end in lovers meeting"
oh, what an extraordinary thought
personally i have not experienced anything remotely close to that
but i am more than willing to believe Shakespeare had
i suppose i think about love more than anyone really should
i'm constantly amazed by its sheer power to alter and define our lives
it was Shakespeare who also said, "love is blind"
now, that is something i know to be true
for some, quite inexplicably, love fades
for others, love is simply lost
but then, of course, love can also be found
even if just for the night
and then there's another kind of love
the cruelest kind
the one that almost kills it victims
it's called, unrequited love
of that, i am an expert
most love stories are about people who fall in love with each other
but what about the rest of us?
what about our stories?
those of us who fall in love alone
we are the victims of the one-sided affair
we are the cursed of the loved ones
we are the unloved ones
the walking wounded
the handicapped without the advantage of a great parking space
...i've been cursed by being in love with a man who does not and will not love me back

okay so guys i'm NOT in love, can i just say that? i have yet to experience being 'in love' with someone.

but i do know what it's like to LIKE someone.

i've been cursed by liking men who do not and will not like me back.

why does this always happen to me? and if you're about to respond to that by saying "because you haven't met 'the one' yet" - i might have to hurt you

oh it's not that these men don't 'like' me back - they do like me at first. which is what grabs my attention. and then once i'm interested they run. away. they may stay interested for a little while. but they all run.

i'm not asking for a husband. i'm asking for a boyfriend. a boy, who is my friend, who WANTS to DATE me.

is that too much to ask?

okay so back to the movie. this girl (the one who said all that stuff in the beginning of the movie) is eating dinner on a Saturday night with an old man. he asks her why she decided to spend her Christmas holiday alone. she said it's because she wants to escape her ex-boyfriend who won't let her go...

"so he's a schmuck." as a matter of fact, he is a huge schmuck. how did you know? "he let you go. this is not a hard one to figure out. in the movies we have leading ladies and we have the best friend. you, i can tell, are a leading lady. but for some reason you're behaving like the best friend" you're so right. you're suppose to be the leading lady of your own life...

is it awful to not want to be friends with someone? i always struggle with this idea because i believe that we should be like Jesus. Jesus, i believe, would be friends with everyone (if they let Him). obviously it's hard to be friends with someone who doesn't want to be your friend. but is it awful to not want to be friends with someone who just wants to be friends? (could i say that in a more confusing way?)

say, for example, that a boy acts like he wants to date a girl. everything that he does alludes to the idea that he really likes her. but then changes his mind and decides that he just wants to be friends. would the girl be unChristlike if she decided she didn't want to be friends with him? what if being just friends with this boy actually really hurts this girl. is it better that she play the part of the best friend OR drop the boy and be the leading lady of her own life?

it turned out that he wasn't in love with me like i thought
what i'm trying to say is,
i understand feeling as small and as insignificant as humanly possible
and how it can actually ache in places that you didn't know you had inside you
and it doesn't matter how many new haircuts you get,
or gyms you join,
or how many glasses of chardonnay you drink with your girlfriends
you still go to bed every night going over every detail
and wonder what you did wrong
or how you could have misunderstood
and how in the hell, for that brief moment you could think that you were that happy?
and sometimes you can even convince yourself
that he'll see the light and show up at your door
and after all that,
however long 'all that' may be,
you'll go somewhere new
and you'll meet people who make you feel worthwhile again
and little pieces of your soul will finally come back

so that little speech is probably one of my favorite parts of the movie. and please DON'T GET THE WRONG IDEA - i'm NOT miserable. i'm FINE. (i had to put that side note in there because i know there will be some of you who will read this and think that i'm just miserable and something is terribly wrong. DON'T PANIC.)

i love that part because there have been times during my life when i have felt exactly what she describes. i think my favorite part is when she says "sometimes you can even convince yourself that he'll see the light and show up at your door"

i should go on holiday.

like to Seattle.

to be with the people who ALWAYS make me feel worthwhile.

so i'm thinking like....in two weeks?

um yes, i think that's brilliant. in two weeks i'm going on holiday...