The movie that started it all. Well, not exactly. I blame Dear John for that, but by now I'm sure you're seeing a pattern. It was good. Something I would want to see again and definitely something was more than happy to pay for. It followed Sophie, a writer (like I needed her to be a writer like I need a smack to the back of the head) who journeyed to Italy for her fianceé's business. A pre-honeymoon as they called it. Which annoyed me right away. He was always leaving her and she went off in search of her own fun. Which turned into her writing a letter in response to someone who wrote to Juliet (yes, of Romeo and Juliet fame) over fifty years ago. And of course the adventure ensued and I thought it was sweet. Yes, I cried. It happens.
I went with a very good friend of mine who indulged me as I wrote the intro post to this blog sitting in a diner. As we sat there, I watched couples come in and I had my opinions about them. What person in this world doesn't secretly judge a little? But more than that, I was remembering the movie and people watching there. There were a lot of little details that were nice from an English major's perspective.
What I found nice was the way that Claire was looking for her long-lost love. Not everyone has that kind of thing in their past, leaving someone like that. I know I don't. But most people have something they regret. I know I do. What would you do if you had the chance to go back and try and fix that mistake? To find that person and ask for forgiveness, mend the broken bridge? Would you turn it down? Even if your family didn't really support it?
While I don't have a real regret in that sense when it comes to love, hindsight is twenty/twenty. I remember a time when I thought that someone was going to be special to me. And apparently he liked me too. But perception and my own over-active imagination took one fun evening of watching movies and effectively turned it into something he didn't care about. I found out too late that he had and it was something that I regretted for a while, something that I wished I could change. But people change and I grew up a little more from the naive girl I was then. That wasn't something that would have been good for me. And I'm glad it hadn't gone beyond a nice night, something I can now look back at fondly as one of those really good college memories. Do I think about him sometimes? Sure, when his picture pops up on my Facebook account, but that wasn't something that was meant to be. I'm someone who believes, maybe a little too much, in destiny. In fate. We weren't fate.
I know he's out there. The proverbial one. The one that will make me glad that I waited, that I didn't let my cynical side get to me. The one that ignored the fact that I live in a country who's divorce rate is one of the highest. I just hope I don't have to wait fifty years to find him.
