When night falls, most of the time, it seems as though darkness’ purpose is to cover the Heavens. Maybe this is generally why nothing too great transpires beyond a certain time. It is as if God breathes a sad sigh, leaving matters in our hands till morning, hoping then we ask forgiveness. This was not one of those nights. The Heavens shone through the darkness. A beautiful, majestic night. Somewhere in an alternate universe, Belle and the Beast danced together on this night. Then, as if it happened simultaneously, as soon as the first cloud blemished the view of the Heavens, she distressingly gathered her belongings. She stormed right by me down the driveway toward the cab without the slightest glance. My cousin – I love him – he was checking on me all night. He knew. Whether by intuition or estimation, he knew a love was still there. A married man, my cousin, so he knows what to do in this situation. At least he knows better than I. “You have to go make it right,” he said, as she crawled into the vehicle that would take her from me forever. But my emotions had finally won out. I was doing a bang-up job all night keeping them in check, or maybe I was keeping them at bay, but the hounds of emotion had tracked me down. In response, I looked up at him and said, “This isn’t the fucking movies.” Off she went. Possibly – probably – never to be seen again.
I might be right, though, you know? I might be. Life might not be like the fucking movies. Do we not go to theater just to pretend about what reality could be – with the understanding that it is indeed pretend? Or do we go to theater to identify with a particular character, who may be ensconced in equivalent trials or tribulations, and to observe how that character behaves so that we might have a better idea how to behave ourselves? Whichever of the two you subscribe to, possibly both, one thing I know to be true is that The Notebook is a fucking lie. I’m sorry, Ladies, but it is! It is because of my dislike for that trash movie that an idea occurred to me after the night she left for good. Like Noah, I was going to write her three-hundred and sixty-five consecutive letters, no matter if they were responded to or even read. You’ll have to take my word for this, but I was absolutely willing to write 353 more letters before I decided to stop. Why did I decide to stop? Because this isn’t the fucking movies! What? Her mother confiscated the first twelve? No! They went without response because she doesn’t want me in her life, and who am I to insert myself into it if that is what she wants? The letters went without response because she’s not Allie, and I’m not Noah.
In “Things A Man Oughta Know,” Lainey Wilson sings, “How to chase forever down a driveway; how to never let it get there in the first place.” You oughta know to do that because, according to her, if you really love a woman, you don’t let her go. She might be right, you know? What would have happened if I had written the rest of the letters? I’ll never know because I didn’t do it. I already didn’t chase her down the driveway. Here is another thing I didn’t do, and yet here I am typing to y’all (TN getting to me) about how life isn’t like the movies while I concurrently lay in a bed full of “what-ifs.” So, maybe it is like the movies. Maybe I keep missing crucial scenes because I have to use the bathroom. Maybe I should have just pulled it out, pissed in the big cup, and told my Tinder date it was Mountain Dew. For what it’s worth, I’ve never been on a Tinder date. I don’t think I want to go on one. Actually, I got a “match” just hours ago. A seemingly kind-hearted lady with pictures of her kids. “That’s nice,” I thought. Profile: “YES, my husband knows about this; we have an open marriage.” Jesus, is this where we are at today? What fuckin’ movie is this? Tinder Linings Playbook?
I want it to be like the movies. A lot of my time is spent dreaming about life being like the movies. In one of them, I crashed her future wedding. Boombox and all. “I want to know what loooove iiissss!” Foreigner ruined everyone’s good time. Another I purchased a toy guitar, pretended to play it over an instrumental, sang to her our favorite song, and proposed to her myself at Big Sur. It is so often I dream that I even googled “maladaptive daydreaming.” The results revealed to me nothing that I liked. They said it could be a sign of a mental illness, so I discredited it the same way I would discredit a horoscope. Part of the reason that I decided to write the letters was because I was sick of being a dreamer – I wanted, for once, to be a doer. No fantasy has turned reality by more dream.
Serendipity is one of my favorite movies. Why I choose to believe the nonsense in Serendipity and not The Notebook, I don’t know. Shit like that happens, does it not!? Extremely unlikely events that transcend mere coincidence? I should have chased her down the driveway. I should have continued writing the letters. Maybe what I did or did not do is exactly what was supposed to have happened because this isn’t a damn movie – or maybe it is. Maybe I’m just not the director. No. Clearly, I am not the director. Why, that’s it! Maybe it is like the movies, but it isn’t my fuckin’ movie. I am but a character in God’s movie with a specific role to play. A role that if I play well enough – maybe, just maybe, a matching black cashmere glove will come floating my way, or it won’t, because
This Isn’t the Fucking Movies.
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