Rinse...Repeat

I'm afraid is another random thought day. No grand wisdom or witty repartee seems to be forthcoming. As for the title I am thinking of things I do over and over. Over on the Bettyverse everyBetty was listing movies or books that they read or watch compulsively. You know the ones where you know all the lines and still get that little hitch in your chest right before the big scene. Also they brought up that there was obviously something we're getting out of it. Some release or emotional payoff because a lot of the time this habit manifests when we are stressed, tired, or in some situation that is less than stellar.

It started for me right before my divorce. I was 22 years old, 900 miles from home and family for the first time, married to a Navy man who of course was only there sometimes and when he was we were not doing well. I spent a lot of nights and days alone. So I found myself watching Twister as a bedtime ritual. I still to this day love this movie. I've watched it more than 50 times but if it comes on T.V. I will still get excited and watch it as if it's the first time. I've never really examined the why of it and I'm not at all sure I want to now. Yet, for you, good followers of the Blog, I will.

Twister is a movie about last chances. That's the way it always seems to me. It's about a last chance at Love. The two leads are divorcing scientists, one of which is moving on and the other is holding on silently. They also have worked on a project with their friends for a long time and finally have the opportunity for a last ditch effort to make it work. I think that if I had to pick one scene, it would have to be the homecoming scene.  In the scene, the scientists are chasing a tornado storm system when they take a break at the female lead's Aunt's house. They are all there and they are reminiscing about the 'good old days' of storm-chasing, when Jo retreats to take a shower and her Aunt corners her to talk.

Aunt Meg: He didn't keep his part of the bargain, did he?
Jo: Which part?
Aunt Meg: To spend his life pining for you, and die miserable and alone.
Jo: Is that too much to ask? 

Now looking at all this I wonder what exactly this meant (and probably still means) for me. There are other memorable scenes for me but this one strikes deep and has always been what I think of when I think of this movie.  Sitting here pondering I still can't quite come up with a logical (or emotional) tie in. I 'know' it's there but I can't quite get at it.

Rereading the quote and remembering the scene it comes to me that the entire movie seems to revolve around the male lead 'coming back'. The Aunt says that 'Bill always went his own way which was usually whatever way you were going.' And you get the feeling that at some point he stopped and left her to go another way. By the end of the movie he is once again 'going her way'. He went off to build a new life that it turns out wasn't really a life he wanted. So he ends up back in the life that suits him and she is there, not waiting exactly, but continuing in the direction they had both originally set out in. I think maybe that is the key for me. At that point in life I was hoping deep down inside that my husband would 'come back' emotionally and once again be going 'my way'. I was also living a life that didn't suit me. I think the 'Navy Wife' is possibly the worst role ever for me. It plays upon all my strengths (loyalty, strength of will, intelligence, imagination and a need for family and community) and weaknesses (isolation, martyrdom, helplessness, disdain for authority, trust issues, and most of all control issues) in a way that is just destined to fail. So sitting alone in a strange town on a dark night while my husband was 'off' somewhere I really felt this. I felt he hadn't kept his part of the bargain to love me more than anything or anyone else and I was left behind and alone continuing a life I didn't want hoping he would one day join me.

Honestly I think that I have been rinsing and repeating ever since. I've since  built lives with other men only to find that in the end either they went in another direction without me or that the life itself was what they wanted not me and I only got to be there if I conformed to the life. So I guess right now I'm continuing on the path I've built in the hopes that one day there will be a man that can keep his promise to Love me regardless of which way we're going.