The Notebook

I've always loved that song by Trisha Yearwood "The Song Remembers When".  It embodies most things in our lives.  How a special song, a movie, a favorite smell or food will bring us back to a time we may have spent with someone special.  And you hope that it makes you smile and evoke feelings that will give you your "highest highs".

Of course, I've learned that the opposite can happen...where those very same things will bring back bad memories or people that are best forgotten.  What about when it evokes feelings that you don't want to have because you really don't know how to deal with them?

It's that way for me and the movie "The Notebook".  I already didn't believe in "love at first sight", and it's that very same person whom I laid eyes on that introduced me to this movie.  Even from the first time I saw it, it was bittersweet for me.  How can I believe in a love so strong that it brought the characters "Noah" and "Allie" back together over and over again.  Even overcoming Alzheimers and a failing memory, and allowing them to exit this life together so they'd be together forever?

Love hurts. Love fails. I've learned the hard way that love is not enough. No matter how desperately I wanted to believe it.  There are so many songs out there about love..."All you need is love" etc.  But somehow my heart always gets twisted, stabbed, shot, stomped on, etc.  Ok, I admit that divorce has made me a bit bitter. But even before that, with the examples I've seen and experienced first hand, love still allowed people to get the shit kicked out of them.

Still, somehow I'm compelled to watch those damned sappy movies, and why may I ask, do I set myself up for the disappointment I know I'm going to feel at the end of the movie when the main characters do get together?  I know I'm going to scoff and shrug my shoulders with distain because stuff like that only happens in the movies.

So, "The Notebook" was playing on the Family channel and it was a special one with scenes not in the theatrical version, and I had to watch the last part of it. Why? Because it reminded me of him. It reminded me of how floored I was that he actually loved this movie, could actually quote lines from it and he totally believes in the possibility that true love could be this way.  Even after his own heartaches and the horrors he's seen and lived through. I am so much more skeptical, or perhaps the word is cynical.

Yes, I cried at the end.  Not just because Noah and Allie die in each other's arms...where they are meant to be.  But also because maybe a tiny part of my heart wants to believe that there is someone out there for me that could be my Noah. Someone who's love would be so powerful that it could break my cynical bonds and allow me to learn to love in the same way. But it still frustrates me!  It's like believing in fairytales.

So, like the bitch that I am, I shot off an email to this man and told him I had just watched "The Notebook" and I don't know "whether to hate you or to love you!"  It was wrong of me, I know.  But honestly...I really want to hate him for opening up the possibility to me. Worse....opening the possibility and then never having it happen and dying alone.  And I really want to love him for opening up the possibility and maybe, if I just believe hard enough, it will actually happen for me. God, it is so much easier to be a mean, nasty, heartless bitch.  It's so hard to actually have feelings and to care for someone...especially when you know that it's not going to happen for you.

I think it's time for me to go to bed....