After an exceptionally busy week (by the way, I am sorry for not posting here sooner, but I honestly haven't had the time), John and I settled down last night in front of the TV to watch a romantic comedy, The Holiday. I sucked up every second of the sappiness and predicitably that we all find so comforting in this particular genre of film. Of course, as usual, the ending left me with questions about it's realism and concerns about what happens next. But Hollywood would rather leave those issues unaddressed since they would only serve to complicate the story line and the simplicity of a good romantic comedy is what makes it so appealing.
Another thought that struck me after we turned the movie off is how mainstream Hollywood makes billions of dollars on addressing the beginning and ending stages of relationships, but they've done very little to address the middle part. Perhaps it's because the middle part of a relationship is too complex to adequately address in a 2-hour story. Unlike the excitement of the beginning and sorrow of the ending, the middle part of a relationship is emotionally multi-faceted and usually less definable and intense, which probably intimidates most movie makers who seem stuck on the tried and true ways to make a buck. Hollywood sells to us that the only interesting parts of a relationshp are the start and the finish.
While I certainly can't argue the the middle can become laden with routine and that some of the romance seeps out after you regularly find yourself waking up to someone who looks just as terrible as you do in the morning, I still find the middle part exciting in it's own right. In addition to security, the middle part is characterized by a sacred intimacy that the beginning has yet to discover and the ending has lost along the way. While Hollywood may find the idea of two people trying to create a life together boring, I find this to be one of the best parts of being married. John and I are witnesses to each other's life while at the same time forming something new out of the space in the middle of us. A new life that neither of us would have without the other and that could not be replicated exactly with anyone else. Yet while our routine is what we have created out of the two of us, it is not what sustains us as a couple. Our deepening love and continuously evolving discovery of ourselves and each other is what nourishes us during the years that Hollywood filmmakers ignore. Complex and different, but certainly not unexciting. Part of the beauty of this part of a relationship comes not from knowing what will happen next but from knowing that no matter what happens next, we will face it together. In the beginning of The Holiday, Kate Winslet's character shares a quote attributed to Shakespeare, "Journeys end in lovers meeting." But in many ways, when lovers meet the journey is just beginning.
Posted by Kim at April 27, 2007 10:27 PM