Hope chest
I was watching the movie “Catch and Release” the other day, because I am SO on the cutting edge when it comes to watching movies. (It was from 2006.)
And for the record, I’m not totally out-of-touch with new releases — I did manage to catch “This Christmas” when it came out a couple of weeks ago. The ability to stare at Mekhi Phifer was reason enough to see it. 😉
Anyway, speaking of movies better left to Comcast On Demand, “Catch and Release” wasn’t necessarily cinematic genius but part of the plotline got me to thinking. The summary is that Jennifer Garner’s fiance died, we learn he was doing dirty deeds on the downlow, and she ends up hooking up with his best friend, a nice piece of eye candy named Timothy Olyphant.
But we learn that yet another of the fiance’s friends, “Dennis,” has apparently carried a torch for Jennifer’s character for six years. And while he had just a bit part, he was the one I walked away from the movie pontificating over, wondering how he ended up.
Dennis confessed this crazy attraction he’d had for her since she had come into their lives. And I thought, wow, isn’t everyone wishing they could have someone who was secretly in love with them? But of course, don’t we all hope it will be someone GOOD when it does happen? 😉
But Dennis still haunts me because he was cute and nerdy and sweet and sincere. And when you’re the person who’s been hoping and wishing and dreaming for years, what do you do with all of that if that dream is taken from you? I think a lot more of us would go confessing these torrid feelings if there weren’t a 50/50 chance that the other person would look at us as though bugs had started crawling out of our myriad orifices.
I don’t know. I guess I made a conscious decision awhile back to take several years’ worth of dreams and wishes and wants and lock them away in the ol’ hope chest. I don’t have balls enough to ask for a chance to see whether those visions can live outside of my head, so I figure I don’t get to entertain them anymore. Plain and simple.
But again, the question arises, what do you do with all that, I dunno, stuff? If you’re pushing it out of your head, what do you do with all this new, empty space? It’s like moving into a bigger place and not having furniture in all the rooms. All I can do sometimes is yodel and listen to the echo when there’s still a part of me that DIDN’T get locked up that wishes it were the voice I have always been longing to hear, answering me.
I’ll be fine someday. I know it. I can feel it. Hopefully sooner rather than later. I just don’t know WTF to do with myself in the meantime, or what it’s going to take to either throw the hope chest into the ocean or to open it and DO something with its contents. …