Love

It seems an appropriate topic, though what caused me to write about it had nothing to do with the impending holiday o' love. : D

I recently watched a movie called My Brilliant Career for my film class. In class today, our teacher admitted that they chose it on purpose so all we students would be bothered. You see, it starts out like a Jane Austen movie - girl and boy meet, improve each other, and fall in love. And then he proposes and she says no - wait a second, that's not how it's supposed to go!

The fact that the movie does not end with the expected wedding and joy wasn't what bothered me. What bothered me - all feminists should stop reading now - was that she gave up the man she loved in order to be a writer. Well, the ending's a bit ambiguous, maybe she did end up with him or at least someone else sometime, but throughout the ending she repeatedly refused to marry the guy because she wanted to pursue a career.

And this bothered me. I fully realize that by thinking, and then saying, such a thing, there are those out there that will think I'm a repressed woman who falsely believes that I will only be whole when I have a man. However, I know this is not that case. So I did some deep thinking to figure out why this had bothered me so much.

And then I tried to write down all my wonderful philosophical insights and failed. : D

However, I will say one thing: I don't know that I would have been able to do it. I have dreams and hopes for my life just as the girl in the movie did, but I think, if I had to, I would choose the love over the career. I would need the love so badly that everything else diminished in the face of it. Perhaps some would say that no amount of love would fill in for achieving your dreams, and perhaps I would occasionally regret not trying for a career, but love, true, romantic, share-your-life-and-soul love, is something I would never pass up on.

I've known this for a long time, but until the last year or so it frightened me. Needing love like I do, like every human does - well, you get hurt sometimes. I have never suffered heartache romantically, but I have been hurt by friends, so I know a little of what it's like and I didn't want to know how much worse it could get. And I think it is this attitude that led me to have few friends, and to usually put myself before them.

But things started changing when I read an answer on the Board about love. One of the writers said something along the lines of "I love everyone I know." This made me think - do I love everyone I know? Well, why not? And if I did love everyone I knew, what would it look like? These are things that I have thought about a lot in the past year or so. And I know I'm not very good yet - just last week I learned another big lesson, and I'm pretty sure I hurt someone else in the process - but I am changing. Many of these changes have happened inside of me - I realize I see someone in a new light, mostly. Other changes are very noticeable. I have more friends, for one, and I'm starting to talk to them and hang out with them more. And then there's the nicknames, which I've slowly been discovering mean much more than I thought. You can tell how much I know and, yes, love someone by how many nicknames I call them, and often even I'm surprised when I take stock of what I call who. And, even more amusingly, I am now able to have fun flirting, and also take part in what we call 'girl talk' without making fun of everyone else or being all emo myself (mostly, and I do apologize to Goober for the times when I've slipped and acted dumb).

I know this post is far too long, and it's probably not very coherent, but I'm posting it anyway. : D