While our two kids are away at camp my husband and I have been enjoying a staycation - eating out with friends, seeing plays and movies, playing golf (me at least), reading a backlog of magazines... My husband even ran out of chores to do (a first) and was forced to relax a little.
Last night we saw Before Midnight, being fans of the first two movies in the series. I had identified with the first one, having had a few European romances in my college/post-college years. Not so much with the second one, as as I wasn't drifting around in my thirties, but the banter was still enjoyable. We were bracing for the third one, however, as most married couples might, knowing all too well the itch of underlying unresolved tensions and petty bickering. And we weren't disappointed. The setting is lovely - made us both yearn to run off to Greece - and the opening dialogues are fun and playful. Then Celine and Jesse get a kid-free evening in a nice hotel care of their friends. And after a cheery beginning, the evening devolves into a spat they've clearly had many times, ending with her saying she doesn't love him any more, and stomping off. Luckily the relationship is strong, Jesse shows he is committed, and the movie ends on a hopeful note.
Of course the same thing happened literally two days earlier with us. We had planned to do a little window shopping on Queen St (something we never get to do with kids) on the way to meet Michael's brother for dinner. He chose that moment to announce a deal breaker in our relationship (something involving time management we fought over for 20 years that is based on our personalities and that can't be changed, but can only be, well, managed better). We walked up and down Queen St alright, but shouting and swearing (me) and offering threats and sarcasm (him). Our precious time together was quickly going south. Why here? I thought, why not on our couch at home? The same thing happened on our 20th anniversary night in a hotel, on the way out to dinner. Why now?
Maybe it's the perspective we get when we're not in the middle of life, just trying to get through the day and its complications. Maybe those alone times are the best time for reflection - you step out of your life to better look back at it. Our problems aren't as life-changing as the movie characters' (they face the possibility of uprooting their lives in a trans-atlantic move), but they are there and they are constant, and they make you question why you are in the relationship. Like the characters, however, we also had the luxury of time together to face up to the problems, to see the bigger picture and, most importantly, to recommit.
I promised just yesterday I wouldn't use this blog to talk about relationships. It's hard though when your cultural item is about relationships. I guess my point is that while I was originally wary of these films because I wasn't a big Ethan Hawke fan, and all his pseudo-intellectual yammering, I am now grateful for the light at the end of the tunnel they shine. For all of us in the trenches, I salute Celine and Jesse.
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