9/7/14

The old things

I watched this movie today called "Take This Waltz"



It's a few years old and it was brilliant in a way that I can't pinpoint. 

I sort of stumbled across it on Hulu and because I like Seth Rogen and Michelle Williams I just started watching.  It was quite mesmerizing in the way that I just didn't know how I felt about it afterwards.  I felt a weird sense of longing.  A strange sadness.  But also this sense of calm.  Like, right, that's the way life goes.

There was a movie many years ago called In the Bedroom where a father finally kills the guy who nurdered his daughter- and at the end of the movie he came back to bed with his wife and it was like, "ok it's done."  I remember thinking, "Well, ok then.  That's just how that would go."

After this movie was over, I went to the reviews and synopsis of it- to get a feel for what this movie was supposed to be about.  Perhaps I missed it.  It was a tame movie, very little drama in the way of emotional outburst and such.  The main character finds herself attracted to the brooding artist neighbor.  By all accounts it should have been a boring, this sort of thing happens all the time, sort of movie.  However there was something so incredibly likeable about all of the characters.  There was no "bad guy."  The main character, while somewhat troubled, was incredibly endearing and sweet.  She is the kind of girl who could be anyone's best friend.  She was not some sex crazed woman, not that there is anything wrong with that if she was- but she wasn't.  The husband, while not the most passionate guy, was funny and loving.  The brooding artist was kind and thoughtful, and while some of the behavior seemed stalkerish, as the "other man" he was not the kind of guy that was threatening. 

What I took away from this movie is the idea of routines.  How perhaps in life, we keep doing the same things, but sometimes in different scenery.  Long term relationships can sometimes be the very thing that kills a relationship.  It seems sometimes that as soon as the new relationship wears off, it slowly starts to settle into that "long term relationship" phase.  The one that lasts, or intends to last, forever. 

I look at my life now, and while there are a lot of things that are very different about it.  Much of it is the same.  I still have to do the same things.  What is different is the things I don't have to do anymore.  I don't have to deal with the same kind of stressors that I used to have.  I don't have to worry about the things I used to worry about.  I don't have the same sense of dread and fear when I walk in the house anymore.  However, the routine is similar. 

For a little while life shifted into a different reality that seemed like a slice out of a movie they have yet to actually make about BDSM.  However now it's back to something a bit more manageable.  BDSM is not my job, it's just the way I choose to live my life and carry out my relationship dynamic.  The rest of my life looks just like everyone elses.  I walk my dog, I do homework with the kids, I do laundry, I cook, I go to parent teacher conferences.  For as kinky as my life may be, in some ways it is just as exciting, or unexciting as anyone reading this. 

One of the lines from this movie that grabbed me was:

“New things get old, just like the old things do."

And that's true.  I think what I took away from this movie is that while the new things are exciting when they are new, eventually they become old things.  Here I am, at 42, and think I forgot that.  I find myself sometimes feeling almost resentful and robbed that I am watching TV on a Friday night, or that I go to bed alone most night.  I think, what about the excitement?  What about the eroticism that I thought that I found? Where did that go??

Yet when I think about it, it's still there.  I'm just... used to it.  I don't think it's healthy to push the bar higher and higher every time I get restless.  I think that's how people end up trying to go down Niagara Falls in a barrel to see if they can survive it.  My life is good.  Happy.  Amazing even.  However, it's also quite simple.  Sometimes very quiet and occasionally pretty boring.  Sure I engage in activities that some see as indecent or unsavory, but I know people who eat fat free mayonnaise, and well, that's just not something I would ever do. 

So what is it that keeps life exciting?  What can be done when the new gets old.  When the unheard of and seemingly impossible becomes Wednesday?  For me, I simply choose to embrace it.  I embrace the energy of my life, the people I share it with.  The frequency around me.  I choose to sink into my comfy chair and enjoy my normal.  It's the normal I want.

If I ever get to a point where I don't feel a sense of longing for something, I will probably be close to dying.  So today I will take whatever feelings I have of longing and want for more, and use it as a way to remind me that I'm still alive.  Because what I have is what I wanted.  No matter what I have, there's something else I will eventually want.  Even when I HAVE what I want, I think I will continue to walk something more.  I don't think that is live unlived or unfulfilled.

I think that is just what living is.