Anything Less Than Mad Love Is A Waste Of Your Time
October 18th, 2005 by anmari
One of the most recently released movies that haveperhaps hit home(cringe!),so to speak,is the low budget"Dream for an Insomniac"starring Ione Skye and Jennifer Aniston.The lead actorused to be achild star but unfortunately,the movies,which catapulted himto fame,have alreadyslipped my mind.Try to rent a copy of this movie not because of the talentof those whostarred in it but because of thedialogue.One of those lines,which bore a hole in myheart,was,and I quote(not verbatim, though):"I don’t want to be sixty years old and married to my second-bestchoice,wondering what ever happened tothe one who got away."This is just one of the twogreat lines inthat movie.I’ll tell you what the other oneis later.Meantime,let me concentrate on this line-theline that sends chills down your spine once you decide to spendmore than five seconds thinking about it.Have you everwondered what it must feel like married to the oneyou settled on?This truly gives me great feelings of anxiety.It mightbe difficult toaccept the word "settle" because it conjures!Up images of quasi-happiness and half-hearted glee.Yes, there is some sort ofsatisfactionand perhaps,some feeling of security that can be derived from sucha partnership but I wonder,couldthere beanything more?Tosettle is to ultimatelyaccept what is withinreach,what is available,what is the re.To settle is toconvinceone’s self thatthe decision about to be made is inevitable,realistic,and safe.To settle is torisk not ever beingtruly happy because onedecides to adopt the worst type of ‘bahala na’attitude on life’s greatest challenges.And settling is asorry consequence of the passage of time.Yes,time can be the balm that soothes open,painful woundsin one’s heart but it can also be that darkforce thatmanipulatesone’s mind into thinking and believing that the choiceone has madeis the bestchoice..the only choice.Whattime does,and I’msure you’ll agree,is itlodges one’s mindand heart in a cage with thedoor partly open-withthe promise of a betterlife losing its appealover the reality of the present,the convenient,and the routine.
Timealso pressures one into selecting a suitor or spousebecause "there is no one else" and"I’m in a hurry" and there,"this will do".Thewickedness of "settling" is not one way.It also eventuallyhurts the onewho was chosen because in all respects,the truth will surface.You no doubt realizethat you just wasted each other’s time and emotions.But then again, if yourspouse chose you not because he or she"settled", then forgetabout the win-win situation you were gunning for.
Frankie(Ione Skye)delivered that line when she was deciding whether ornot to do everything possible to win David Shrader’s heart.David happened to be involvedwith someone else.He was attracted to Frankie but didn’t really think it wise tosplit up with his girlfriendof three years on alimb. Very much unlikeyou and me,Frankie is very a typical of the Rules Girl. She went forDavid, bared hersoul,and tried to convince him that he will only be happy with her.She thengave him the othergreat line in the movie to make him leave his girlfriend for her."Anything less than mad, passionate love is a waste of my time."Many times,in my nottoo colorful past,I almost gave in to the urge to tell the boy Iliked what I felt for him. In all those times,I optedotherwise for fear of my mother’s wrath and,of course,embarrassment in caseof rejection.I am scared of losing my precious dignity and pride in case he tellsme that he only sees me asa friend.I’m sure you gotthrough these exercises in your psyche too.Sometimes, our heartswin out over our brains when our certainty over the outcomeis great.I try to espouseThe Rules and very rarely make the first move.More often than not,I wait for the guy to call.Now you know thatI’m one of those who walk the avenues of life on a sidewalk-neveroff it.Now,I’mstarting to believe otherwise.I see the beauty in sharing yourfeelings with the one you love-not because you expectsomething in return but because life cannot be livedotherwise.It is a great,big step for an otherwise conservative,girllike you and me,but if you think about it,it’s the only way to go.
Richard Paul Evans’ bestseller after The Christmas Box-The Locket-tells us the story of a woman who fell in love with a soldier when they were both very young. They shared their feelings with each other and were very happy. Eventually, he went off to war and she married somebody else, thinking he wouldn’t return to her. Years passed and they lived their separate lives-he married and had a family while the woman’s husband and son eventually succumbed to illnesses and died. She decided to wait for her soldier’s wife to die before she came back to him-because she didn’t think it was right to complicate his life. The wait took more than sixty years until she eventually found the announcement of his wife’s death in the obituary. By his time, the woman was already 80 and could barely walk. Sadly, by the time she managed to find her soldier to tell him she loved him, he was already senile. The woman eventually died a few days after seeing her soldier and perhaps going through the most heart-wrenching experience in her life. She was too late. The morals of the stories I have mentioned above are similar and almost connected to each other. Perhaps another book theme that we can tie into these is that line from The Bridges of Madison County-"This kind of certainty comes but once in a lifetime." I am of the belief that each person is given the chance to find his one true love as he goes about his life. Sometimes, the opportunity is not too obvious, especially for those who are content with their situation and therefore are not seeking "greener pastures." These times, the chance is often passed up. The luckier ones are those who are probably more clear-minded and in touch with their emotions because they can easily recognize what is staring them in the face. Whether this chance is passed up or not, I know that the feeling one gets when this chance is still within reach is one of certainty. Yes, it is also accompanied with feelings of danger, of risk, and of possible pain but compensating for this is that inexplicable "sureness," that sense of profound happiness that has never been derived anywhere else but from that one person who just happened to pass by in your tidy little life. I call true love a gift because of its rarity. It does not happen everyday. If you pass it up the first time, try not to be too arrogant to look away when it comes by the second time. You may ask me "how will I know if this is my true love?" My answer to that is this: true love is that strong, awesome feeling that scares the hell out of you but always makes you unbearably happy. It doesn?t go away, no matter how much you will it to. More than anything else, you’ll know in your heart when you meet him that he is the one. He doesn’t become the one the same way that soulmates do not become soulmates later in life. With him, you are damn certain that you are not settling. With him, you know that you will be sixty years old and never wondering about the one that got away because he never did… He’s right there holding your hand.
