Remember That Scene...?

Ellen told me the other night that everything reminds me of a movie; and she’s right. I watch a lot of movies, I actually prefer them to regular TV programs; they’re more interesting, they’re longer in length, and there are no commercial breaks. Whenever she and I are talking, though, something that we’re discussing, whether she brought it up or I did, always reminds me of a movie. Shit, even when I’m sitting here alone things will occur that remind me of a movie.

Just a couple of weeks ago I posted on Facebook that I was driving the boys to school when I encountered a woman driving toward me, the wrong way, on the driveway up to the school. I immediately had a flash of “Mr. Mom” where the moms are all yelling at Jack because he’s pulling up to the school from the wrong direction. He keeps going even though his son is telling him he’s doing it wrong, and the one lady yells at him, “South to drop off, moron!!” That’s what I posted on Facebook that morning about the woman who was doing it wrong. I can’t help it; it just happens that movies flash in my mind when something is happening. That’s probably because my life is so pathetic that I don’t have anything real to compare it to, I need movies.

I remember one time writing in one of my blogs that I’ve never been in love before. It’s true, even though a friend of mine told me today that he knows I’ve loved the men in my past relationships. I felt the need to explain to my friend that, he was right, I did love the men in my past, but there is a difference between loving someone and being in love with that person. Yes, I loved them; no, I was not in love with them. How do I know? I’ll tell you. I know I wasn’t in love with them for the simple fact that the love I felt wasn’t unconditional. If one of them did something wrong, I was hard-pressed to forgive. I can always forgive my children, regardless of what they’ve done or how angry they’ve made me. I could never forgive some of my ex-men for some of the things they did. I also never stopped looking for someone new even though I was already in a relationship. I never cheated on any of them, but I was always wondering if the next guy I met might be my “Mr. Right.” Whatever.

When I was having the, “everything reminds you of a movie” discussion with Ellen, I mentioned the falling in love thing and immediately thought of the line from “Sleepless in Seattle,” where Becky (Rosie O’Donnell) says to Annie (Meg Ryan), “You don’t want to be in love; you want to be in love in a movie.” Yep, that would be me. I want to be in love in a movie because I have nothing from “real life” to make any comparisons. In my parenting group a few weeks ago we were discussing what type of man I’d want when I do decide to start dating again. How the fuck am I supposed to know that when I’ve yet to have a decent man from which to extract the pros and cons? The only decent relationships I’ve ever witnessed were on TV and in movies and, since I know they aren’t real, I still can’t say what my “type” of guy is.

Then someone asked me what I’d want out of a relationship. Again, how am I supposed to know when I’ve never had a decent relationship? I can tell you exactly what I don’t want, but it’s really hard to say what I do want when I’ve never had it before. What I’ve seen is on film and I can only guess as to whether or not I’d want different elements of those fictional relationships. Without every having had something personally, it’s not easy to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to it. That would be like a woman who’s never had chocolate ice cream saying, “I’ve seen so many commercials about chocolate ice cream that I must have some of that. I absolutely know for a fact that chocolate ice cream must be a part of my life.” Now, if she has never had chocolate ice cream, there is positively no way she can say for certain that she must have it in her life. She may get some, find that it tastes like shit, and decide that she will most definitely not have any in her life. Don’t ask me what I want when I’ve never had it before. I can only speculate from what I’ve seen in film.

Everything does remind me of movies, though, I’ll admit that; whether a character, a scene, or the entire feature. Today I saw a man outside my house that was a clone of Uncle Fester and appeared to be just as creepy, although he may have been perfectly harmless. All I know is that I was picturing him wearing a bulky, black coat, with a light bulb in his mouth and I wanted to laugh at him. I can’t help it; movies are my escape from my life. When things are grim and looking like they’re not getting any better, I watch a movie to take me away from it all. Then I lose myself in my own little, after-movie fantasies about what life would be like in that movie/TV show. Hey, it beats thinking about the shit that is my life right now.

Do I really want to sit here thinking about the asshole neighbors I have living around me? I don’t think so. Out of the twelve other units in my cul-de-sac, there are three neighbors I speak to on a regular basis because they’re decent people; five more are complete morons; one doesn’t speak any English but has her drug dealing/smoking boyfriend living with her; and the last three are too new for me to really know anything about them. Of what I do know about the newbies, they are selfish and disrespectful with regard to the parking lot. (That just means that they have no regard for the rest of us who live here.) Ask Ellen, every time we talk I’m complaining about one or more of these assholes. I can't think about them all the time; it would make me crazy.

Even when I was growing up my life was nothing great. My mom was narcissistic and I spent a lot of my time taking care of my sister who’s two years my junior. I had horrible things happen to me, and I never really had much of a childhood. If I didn’t have TV and movies, I don’t know what I would’ve done. It was the only way I knew of to get some freedom from my everyday existence. I didn’t have the same things other kids had so the only way for me to experience them was through my imagination; since I wasn’t very imaginative I had to rely on my memories of TV and movies. For instance, I never had a birthday party as a kid; I’d attended some but never had one that I can recall. I did have some in TV shows, though. The only birthday parties I had in my teens were “parties” my parents threw for me after inviting their friends over for a bbq. Yea, that’s fun – not. So, even today, I’ve still never had anything but make-believe-from-TV birthday parties. That’s okay.

Sure, it might be nice to have a man sweep me off my feet the way Richard Gere swept up Debra Winger in “Officer and a Gentleman”; or it might actually be exciting to have a family that likes one another and likes to get together for a vacation the way they did in “Dan in Real Life.” Shit, I’d be happy just being able to sit and chat with my friends, face to face, they way they did in “Circle of Friends,” or “First Wives’ Club.” Instead, my relationships are all phone/email relationships. How bad does that suck? I’ll tell ya; really bad. So, yea, my life may revolve around movies, but that’s okay. Ellen will still be my friend anyway, and, when I eventually do get moved to MD, she and I can just sit and watch movies together and dream and laugh at what life might be like otherwise.

Until next time…peace to all.