love's a bitch

** so i was having some formatting issues (spacings and fonts) so i went back and fixed)

So I’m watching “before sunset” which is such a FUCKING GOOD movie. Premise: years in the future you run into someone that you had a very deep love relationship with. But not the kind of relationship that lasts for years and years and was tainted by reality. No, I’m talking about the kind of relationship where you knew the person for a week, or a night or a few hours, but they left you wondering “what if” because they were never tainted by reality, and the fantasy of them can live on in you forever as the constant “what if” in your life, and even though you are with someone and love them you can still say that making out or kissing or holding hands or whatever with this other person for only one night was the hottest thing that has ever happened in your life, again, because it is not tainted by reality. Now make a movie from that feeling, that moment, etc and you’d have “before sunset.”

Who hasn’t had that fantasy where you run into someone you were with long ago, and you look fabulous, and in paris of all places. Damn you paris! I feel like I’ve always had this really intensely confused relationship with paris, being that I know I should love it but my time I spent there was a cold thanksgiving weekend where I stayed in my friend’s host sister’s bed and we both nearly got blown off the Eiffel tower because it was so crazy windy. David said that although he traveled through Europe on a vespa he never went to paris because he felt that paris had to be reserved for love and romance and therefore he would only go there with a woman. Perhaps that was my problem with my Paris experience, I was missing home and it was cold rainy and my boyfriend at the time was being a jackass. This all does not equate to love. My fondest memories of paris: smoking (ah Europe and my smoking days), eating really bad food, having a massive “I might die, just talk to me about nothing” panic attack on the underground, and most importantly my old college roommate, Miami, vomiting on that very same underground train a few days later. I guess in the end we were both even, her for the vomit and me for the panic attack.

Anyways in this movie these 2 people met when they were like 22 on a train going to, I believe, Vienna. So they have this torrid one night thing and when the guy gets back on his train the next morning they promise to meet in 6 months. The movie ends with you either believing they meet or believing they don’t depending if you are the romantic or the cynic. Well “Before Sunset” takes place years later when the guy has written a book about the whole experience. You find out that they never actually met up 6 months later because of some conflict but now he is on a book tour in paris and she shows up at the store where he is giving a book signing. Like HELLO THIS IS EVERY WOMAN’S FANTASY! Or maybe this is just my fantasy…Anyways what is amazing is that I have imagined moments like this in my life, but it’s more like I am at an open mic night in SF and some red haired tall quiet man goes on stage and says “I’m gonna sing a song that always reminds me of a girl. What we had was short but I always remember her when I sing this song” and then he starts to sing some awesome version of Mr. Big “to be with you” or cardigans “love fool.” And in this fantasy I look totally awesome and fantastically fit. I also have really good shoes and possibly glasses (even though I have perfect vision, damnit). The truth is that knowing myself and my luck I would run into an ex flame while looking shitty in my studying clothes after not having showered for 4 days. Yes, this is my luck. But I mean who knows, perhaps love and romanticism can prevail. Perhaps someday I will have my revenge and look fabulous. I mean who really knows.

There is this scene where they are catching up in a coffee shop and this convo goes down. The amazing part about it is that I feel like this could be any woman’s inner monologue, and I love that she just says it to him.

Celine: “how do I look? Do I look different now?”
Jesse: “you look…thinner. You look thinner.”
Celine: “so was I fat? Oh my god I was fat! I was a fatty! You wrote a book about a French fat girl!”
…
Celine: “I had this um, funny, well, horrible dream the other day. I was having this awful nightmare that I was 32, and then I woke up and I was 23…so relieved. And then I woke up for real, and I was 32. yeah”

I love her because she’s just a little bit crazy, just a bit. And most of the movie is her talking and the whole time kind of doubting myself like “am I saying to much” and him listening and looking at her with such affection thinking “fuck, I could spend the rest of my life on this park bench with this woman, but alas fate is cruel.”

And there is this part where she talks about how sometimes when you have those torrid kind of love affair things and they don’t work out, as they never do, you are traumatized and stunted forever because nothing can ever compare. So if that didn’t work out how will you ever find something that will. Like hello! Speak the words of my fucking soul! But like I said, this can really only happen with non relationships, the kind that are really short lived and leave you thinking, “wait so when I count the number of boyfriends I’ve had should I list that? I mean it doesn’t really count because it wasn’t a real relationship, but it was something…else.” Does anyone know what I am talking about? It's like really passionate, unnaturally so. I do'nt think that real love and real relationships should be that passionate, because if they were they would burn out quickly. Which is what makes the whole unforgettableness of it all even worse because you know it would have never worked out but you spend the rest of your life trying to get that feeling back because it just feels so fucking good. Has anyone has the fantasy come true of running into this person again and being fabulous, or are we too young still for these kinds of moments? I usually like to have parting thoughts, but really, I don’t know because I wrote this post last night but was too tired to tidy it up.

Cathy and I saw bridge to terabithia tonight which was seriously, about as traumatic as My Girl, only way more awesome. Weeping! We were literally weeping! So many eeeemotions