Tuesday, August 5, 2014
When I was 9, I was going to marry Jack.
... or John Taylor from Duran Duran, but mostly, Jack.
You know, Jack from the movie Legend.
Mind you, Jack is not Tom Cruise. Yes, Tom Cruise played Jack. Tom Cruise as anyone else was Tom Cruise, but Jack was Jack.
Now that we've cleared that up...
So, at the age of 9, marriage was something you did when you were older and you found the love of your life. Okay, if you found the love of your life... OR you married the person that you thought you could deal with. That notion, I got from my parents because it's basically what they did. I didn't buy it, though. I didn't think you should spend your life married to someone that you weren't absolutely in love with. Like... can't-live-without kind of love.
Oh, 9-year-old Ceci, that's so cute! *pat pat*
Maybe I'm jaded. I mean... that could be it, right? Married and divorced twice... there's an excellent chance that I'm jaded.
Right now, I run the gamut of wanting to believe in that fairy tale kind of love... and knowing that the best you can hope for is someone that is very in love with you to begin with, who will settle into that been-through-the-shit-and-grown-with-you kind of love that old married couples seem to have.
...
I'm not really sure what my point is, here, except maybe to post a picture of Jack for me to stare at (Hi, Jack!) and to spread a little of the jaded around.
Kidding.
I'm tired.
I think... I think maybe this topic has come up what with Stephen finally meeting my family after being with me for about 4 years now, having gone through our own shit, and with my parents being so big on marriage.
Does everyone else expect it, too? Is that the way it always goes? Does "long relationship" always equal marriage and if so, is it doomed because the stakes are higher, because there is less of that new love by the time you get married to make you really battle for what's on the line? What do you do when there are two divorcees in the relationship, both bringing with them that fear that this could end in divorce like the last one?
I hate that I feel foolish for believing in love and thinking that marriage still might work. I hate that I feel jaded for thinking that it never works out and it would be foolish to even attempt marriage a third time.
Maybe the problem with my view then versus my view now is that I didn't know what love truly was, maybe I didn't understand it - and couldn't - until now, and therefore it's my old view that's flawed.
Now I think it's something more along the lines of Nicolas Cage's little speech in Moonstruck:
"I love you. Not like they told you love is, and I didn't know this either, but love don't make things nice -- it ruins everything. It breaks your heart. It makes things a mess. We aren't here to make things perfect. The snowflakes are perfect. The stars are perfect. Not us. Not us! We are here to ruin ourselves and to break our hearts and love the wrong people and die. The storybooks are bullshit."
Why is it that I'm having a hard time finding any room for anything romantic, anything like that fairy-tale-type love that, for me - right now- seems the only reason to do anything as binding as marriage? I see it like I see fairy tales.... it's nice and all, but there's not much hope in that being real.
Oh, divorce! What have you turned me into?!
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2 comments:
I think people expect the, excuse me for this but it fits, drunk in love ZOMGFOREVEEEER! Never mind that that can sometimes be filled with mistrust and drama. Comfort is foreign to some people.
@Amanda Guerra - Mainly, I like the lessons I've learned about love. Yes, the Moonstruck version is better than the fairy tale version if you ask me; I love flawed things. BUT... the problem is that I feel like I'm just so jaded, like the romantic was hacked out of me. Most times I'm not even sure I believe in marriage anymore!
I'm reminded of the A Softer World comic that says something along the lines of "Congrats to you on your first wedding."
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