Sweet Home Alabama

Saturday night I watched one of my favorite movies, Sweet Home Alabama.  I know what you're thinking: that's a chick-flick, you mister are a single guy, you should be watching sports or The Good, The  Bad and The Ugly, or maybe you should be out on the town carousing.  But, as it turns out, I never was much of a carouser and I trained on the bike for nearly 5 hours Saturday, riding 86 miles, including a climb over the Appalachian Gap and finishing with a quick transition to a 3 mile run.  Needless to say I was tired and neither going out nor watching a long serious movie seemed to fit the bill.  So I grilled a small grass fed strip streak, sauteed some broccoli in coconut oil, and got comfortable on the couch for a movie that entertains me every time I see it.

I think what I like about Sweet Home Alabama is that Melanie and Jake fall in love as children and it stays with them into adulthood.  Even when they're apart, even when they're mad at each other, or hurt, or convinced that they aren't right for each other, deep within each of them the love survives, and when it finally resurfaces it makes for some very interesting movie antics.

There are a couple of key lines in the movie that stick with me......one is when Jake says something to the effect that no one meets their soul-mate when they're 10 years old. But of course that is precisely what happened and all the denial and stored up pain in these two characters can't erase that fact.  I'm nearing 50 and obviously I didn't marry my childhood sweetheart.  In fact I've done poorly on the love front, due as much to my own poor judgment in picking partners as to bad luck or a myriad of other explanations. 

In any case, something inside of me, despite a life-time of evidence that speaks to the contrary, continues to cling to the romantic notion that there is a soul mate for me on this planet.  I suppose this indicates unfulfilled needs deep within that have not been met (and are not likely to be addressed in the latter third of my life), but you would think that at some point a person would be matured by time and broken hearts to the point where belief in true love yields to more practical concerns. My therapist is going to love talking about this next session.

The other line that really gets to me is late in the movie when Melanie is telling her new fiancee that she can't marry him.  Paraphrasing, she says that she gave all her heart to Jake when they were young and she never really got it back, even though she left Jake seven years ago, moved to New York City, and built a whole new life.  This girl convinced herself that she and Jake weren't right for each other, that he was her past not her future, yet at the moment when it really counts she realizes that she loves Jake, and despite all her thoughts and convictions, her new life and worldly success, she has never stopped loving him. 

I dream of having a partner that loves me that much, unconditionally, despite my faults, my issues, my past.  It will probably never happen and watching the movie brings me to tears as the realization and associated grief are touched by the drama.  It is a happy ending in the movie and it's a comedy that appeals to my sense of humor, my perspective on just how absurd life can be.......so by the time the credits roll, I'm feeling better; but I'd be lying if I didn't admit that I thought long and hard about Jake and Melanie while I was running my 16 miles on Sunday morning.

I've been reading Blue Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson.  After the movie, I read for a little while before going to sleep.  I came across an interesting passage that very accurately captures how I feel relative to the idealism portrayed in Sweet Home Alabama.  One of the main characters, Nirgal, has company to his house, a couple with their little girl.  He observes how happy the little family is together, how right Nadia and Art are for one another, having been colleagues and friends for years before they became romantic.  Nirgal observes that only a few people in the world are fortunate enough to run into their true partners - it takes outrageous luck for it to happen, then the sense to recognize it, and finally the courage to act.  Very few can be expected to navigate all that and then to have things go well as life progresses.  The rest of us just have to make do.

That's how I feel at this point in my life......I'm making do.  On some days I have hope and faith that love is out there.  I was at a Kentucky Derby party last week and the girlfriend of one of my swimming mates told me that when I least expect it, that's when it will happen.  I don't know, maybe she's right, maybe not.

On other days I am consumed by the end of my last relationship.  I was convinced that she was finally the one and I put everything I had into that love. I've been known to get a little delusional in relationships, but in this case she felt the same way, and we talked often of spending the rest of our lives together, of getting married.  We even went so far as to pick rings, a location, and a date.  People change I guess, and in her case she thought her way out of the relationship, or fell out of love, or met someone else that undercut her faith in us, or something.......so that we went from wedding planning to my heart being crushed in a matter of a few months.  The details are less important to me now than the lingering doubt that if true love could evaporate that fast, perhaps there is no true love, no soul mate, at least not for me.  Maybe this woman, this heart break, is the final blow to my idealism, and now it's time to grow-up, be practical, and stop pining for something as elusive as a soul mate.

I have a spirited debate churning away inside of me.......Sweet Home Alabama on the side of idealism and true love, or, the object lessons of a lifetime of let down and betrayal that illustrate the fragility (or fallacy) of true love.  In the long run, it may well be that life is really just about making do.