I love Happily Ever Afters. Especially since they're a part of the same fairytales that begin with 'Once Upon a Time'. And doesn't everyone just love a good fairytale? I'm not averse to participating ever so slightly in the V-Day madness myself, but only just a little. Just kind of, like, dipping my toe into the swirling cesspool of red heart-shaped balloons, teddy bears, chocolate, cards, flowers, diamonds, and what-have-you. The thing I HAVE TO DO, and that makes me feel warm to the tips of my extremities, (though I suspect that it could also be the wine working), is watching 'Love, Actually'. HAVE.TO.DO. Even though it is a mush-fest that was made to set the cash registers ringing at the box office during the Christmas holidays in 2003, I LOVE IT!
Quite predictably, my favourite scene in the entire movie is when Mark, played by Andrew Lincoln, (who I can just pour chocolate sauce over and eat with a spoon as a Sunday brunch treat- that's how delicious he is, but let's focus here), uses flashcards to profess his love for Juliet. One reads, 'To me, you are perfect.' That's it. That says it all. Whatever he has seen of her, whatever he knows about her, whatever he's imagined her to be, whatever he will cherish about her forever, is summed up in that one sentence-To me, you are perfect.
Oh! The enormous relief of having told her, the satisfaction that she knows, the beautiful secret, and hidden glances that only they will share, and the exquisite heartache of unrequited love!
He will never know that she probably snores when she sleeps, or talks incessantly on the phone, or knows how to cook only two dishes. Or that she probably never wants to have kids, or can't stand his mother, or doesn't brush her teeth on Sundays. She, on the other hand, will also never know that he's probably afraid of the dark, or hates to eat fish (which she, perhaps, loves), is secretly a mama's boy, is slightly racist, doesn't leave tips in restaurants, and wears the same socks two days in a row. And because they are blissfully unaware of all this, they can create whatever version of the other person that they want, and be in love forever.
Because sometimes, what is really more beautiful than the pain of longing? What is more exciting than the drama of recreating in one's imagination a hundred times over, What Might Have Been? What is, ironically, more invigorating than loving so much that you feel like you cannot breathe, and there's a big hole in the centre of your chest where your heart used to be? Like you're drowning, and struggling to come up for air. Like you're being dragged through the trenches, deprived of oxygen, devoid of sustenance, and no longer in control of your heart or your head? What is the point of loving someone, if you never feel what it is like to be so immersed in thoughts of them, that it leads you to the precipice, to the very brink of madness?
I can think of nothing sweeter.
Happy V-Day, everyone!
Quite predictably, my favourite scene in the entire movie is when Mark, played by Andrew Lincoln, (who I can just pour chocolate sauce over and eat with a spoon as a Sunday brunch treat- that's how delicious he is, but let's focus here), uses flashcards to profess his love for Juliet. One reads, 'To me, you are perfect.' That's it. That says it all. Whatever he has seen of her, whatever he knows about her, whatever he's imagined her to be, whatever he will cherish about her forever, is summed up in that one sentence-To me, you are perfect.
Oh! The enormous relief of having told her, the satisfaction that she knows, the beautiful secret, and hidden glances that only they will share, and the exquisite heartache of unrequited love!
He will never know that she probably snores when she sleeps, or talks incessantly on the phone, or knows how to cook only two dishes. Or that she probably never wants to have kids, or can't stand his mother, or doesn't brush her teeth on Sundays. She, on the other hand, will also never know that he's probably afraid of the dark, or hates to eat fish (which she, perhaps, loves), is secretly a mama's boy, is slightly racist, doesn't leave tips in restaurants, and wears the same socks two days in a row. And because they are blissfully unaware of all this, they can create whatever version of the other person that they want, and be in love forever.
Because sometimes, what is really more beautiful than the pain of longing? What is more exciting than the drama of recreating in one's imagination a hundred times over, What Might Have Been? What is, ironically, more invigorating than loving so much that you feel like you cannot breathe, and there's a big hole in the centre of your chest where your heart used to be? Like you're drowning, and struggling to come up for air. Like you're being dragged through the trenches, deprived of oxygen, devoid of sustenance, and no longer in control of your heart or your head? What is the point of loving someone, if you never feel what it is like to be so immersed in thoughts of them, that it leads you to the precipice, to the very brink of madness?
I can think of nothing sweeter.
Happy V-Day, everyone!
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