Writer’s Workshop: The Story of Us

3.) What was it about that movie? Describe a movie you once had memorized.

I hadn’t planned to participate this week.  Even after reading the prompts, I thought I would skip it.  But as so often happens, I was later lured in against my better judgment.

This week you’re getting an abridged version, because I’m following my own restraint policy.
The movie?  The Story of Us.

It came out in 1999, before I was married.  Before I was engaged.

While we were broken up, actually.  While I was longing for someone else.

And something about this movie touched me deeply.  It was so unexpectedly real, and showed an imperfect love in a raw way that I had never seen before.

I’m a love junkie, you see.  I dreamed of a perfect, passionate, all-consuming love.

My grandparents eloped at 16 and 17, and were happily married for 63 years before my grandfather passed away.

My parents have a beautiful story.  That Vince Gill song, Look at Us, makes me think of them every time I hear it.

I’m not so into romance.  Romance fades.  I’m not into flowers or diamonds or sweet nothings.  But love? Real love?  Love gets me, every. single. time.

Elderly couples who still look at one another with adoration in their eyes.  Couples that marry after only a few dates, because they know they have found The One.  Love that conquers all, love that endures.

That endurance, though, is usually depicted in a romantic way in the movies.  We see all of the passion and none of the reality.  The Story of Us was real to me, and it opened my eyes to the idea of love being difficult.  Imperfect.  Not fun.

In ways small and lighthearted:

It is physically impossible to French-kiss a man who leaves the new roll of toilet paper resting on top of the empty cardboard roll. Does he not see it?  DOES HE NOT *SEE* IT?

{love Rita Wilson!}

And ways big and serious:

There’s a history here, and histories don’t happen overnight. In Mesopotamia or ancient Troy there are cities built on top of other cities, but I don’t want another city. I like this city. I know what kind of mood you’re in when you wake up by which eyebrow is higher, and you know I’m a little quiet in the morning and compensate accordingly. That’s a dance you perfect over time. And it’s hard, it’s much harder than I thought it would be, but there’s more good than bad and you don’t just give up!

This movie gave me hope that even when things were bad, there might just be good lurking around the bend.

To be honest, this movie is the reason I took my boyfriend-now-husband back, after swearing I never would.  [That's a whooooole other story]

I believe that love is a choice.  That every day, you have to actively choose to love a person.  Even when you may not like them.  Even when it is hard.  Even when it isn’t fun.  Because that’s what real love is – a commitment, rather than a feeling.

From the movie Captain Corelli’s Mandolin:

“When you fall in love, it is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake, and then it subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is.  Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion, it is not the desire to mate every second of the day. It is not lying awake at night imagining that he is kissing every part of your body.  No… don’t blush!  I am telling you some truths.  That is just being ‘in love,’ which any of us can convince ourselves we are. Love itself is what is left over when being ‘in love’ has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. Doesn’t sound very exciting, does it?  But it is!  Your mother and I had it. We had roots that grew towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossoms had fallen from our branches we found that we were one tree and not two.”

This is the love that I dream about now.

Real love.

Imperfect stories.

One tree.

What If

Mama Kat – who by the way, sort of rocks – does a Writer’s Workshop every week.  I almost always play along, though more often than not, I do not publish them.  Not here, anyway.

I have a tendency to pick the most difficult prompts.  The brutally honest, no-holds-barred kind that are hard for me to get out and even harder to let go of once I do.  It’s therapeutic to write, and I’ve done this as long as I can remember with no need to broadcast it to the world.

But sometimes – sometimes – I wonder what would happen if I did.  What if I really did put it all out there, warts and all?  What would people think?  Would those that love me, stop?  Would they think that they never really knew me at all?  Would they be relieved to know that someone else thinks the same way they do?

I hold myself back for two reasons.  First, because if my life were ‘Sense and Sensibility’, I’d rather be Elinor than Marianne.  I’ve been Marianne and gotten burned.  Better to keep a tight rein on your emotions, I believe.  And second, because I have a ‘fake it ’til you feel it’ policy that I apply to instances when I fear my natural instinct might lead me astray.  Sometimes faking the right thing helps me feel the right thing.  Sort of like plastering a smile on your face until you actually feel happy.

So if I stopped holding myself back, what I might be putting ‘out there’ could be too much.  Too revealing, too personal, too hurtful.

Today isn’t the day I stop holding back, just in case that’s what you were waiting for.  But I wanted to share with you the prompt that rocked me last week.

1.) Lou Holtz (don’t ask me who that is) once said, “life is ten percent what happens to you and ninety percent how you respond to it.” Do you believe this? Describe a time when you feel like you could have responded a different way and produced a different outcome.

Can you imagine the possibilities here? For 6 days now I have been considering the many directions my life could have taken, had I just done any one thing differently.

Every reaction, every decision, perhaps even every ‘avoidance of making a decision’ produces an outcome, so there are myriad opportunities for change.  One little choice that might have made all the difference in the world.

As a person who has always been intrigued by the concept of fate, this prompt especially appeals to me.

{Maybe I am revealing too much.  Fate and Christianity don’t necessarily go hand in hand, do they?}

Yes, there are many ‘What-Ifs’, and this past week I undoubtedly spent too much time considering them.  But introspection can be healthy, right?

Now I just need to look for the learning.

If you’d like to try this out yourself, Mama Kat posts her prompts on Tuesdays.

Writer’s Workshop – What I hate about you

I’m going with Prompt #1.

10 Reasons why you’re better off without him….or her….or it.

1. You don’t love me the way that I love you.
2. You’re empty inside.
3. The good moments we spend together are fleeting at best.
4. You look good on the outside, but looks are deceiving.
5. You take more than you give.
6. You’re never around. You think once a year you can sweep me off my feet, but I require more than that.
7. I can’t afford you!  Good grief, you burn through my money in the blink of an eye.
8. After we’re together, I feel bad about myself.
9. You don’t care about making me feel bad, either. You just sit there and mock me, relentlessly.
10. You’re not loyal.  You cozy up with women all over the place and I’m supposed to just take it.

Wow.  I was planning on writing about someone something else entirely, but when I got going something else entirely just poured out.  I’m guessing some of you can relate.

photo credit: this is a thing

Die, Girl Scout Cookies. 

I need you dead and gone.

I literally ate 3 thin mints while on the treadmill today. 

My judgement has been compromised.

And I am ‘supposedly’ training for a half-marathon and participating in not one, but two fitness challenges as well.

Not. Looking. Good.

But my frozen Samoas only come around once a year, so how can I say no to that?

Clearly, I cannot.

And this, my friends, is the tale of why I will never again wear a 2-piece bathing suit.  Because I have the willpower of a…dang.  What’s the rest of that sentence?  A person with no willpower?

I’ll have to have a cookie while I think about that for a minute.