Watching Chick Flicks and REALITY

So this past semester has had a lot of homework, and so I haven't had any time to watch movies. I can name all the movies that I have sat completely through. King Arthur, Pocahauntas, and most recently, tonight, Bride and Prejudice.


I would like to point out that romance in movies isn't real life. Because the media influences our thoughts and processes, many people think of romance, relationships, and marriage like the way that actors portray it, which is the way they are asked to portray it by the script & the writers, which is influenced by who knows what.
Outtakes show us that people are acting, that they make mistakes, and that they sometimes have a bit of a hard time trying to act out something  If people acted like this in real life, there wouldn't be any outtakes because it would come naturally to them. They wouldn't need a script. 
Reality has something called free will, and with that free will, people live independently from the stereotypes. 
Unfortunately, the media has a deeper grip than we can loosen just by reading these words. It is a harsh truth. To live counter cultural, one almost has to reject the idea of romance. 


But how can we reject romance? I have a hard time with that. I like our culture's characteristics for "dating and relationships". I would love to receive flowers, and be asked on a date where we dress up like we're visiting our grandparent's church, and we sit at a table, order nice food, and drink nice drinks late into the night, learning about each other. I would love to spend time with someone, dancing the night away, or walking beside a river, or shopping at the mall, taking silly pictures together. 

"Silly Picture"

These ideas come from somewhere. Somewhere along the way, I was told that to have a fun, romantic relationship was to do these things. Maybe it was the novels I read, maybe it was the movies I watched, but either way, I felt like I was taught that someday I would be married, and the world would "LIVE HAPPILY FREAKING AFTER." Who freaking painted that picture? As I continue to look at the world around me and watch people as they build relationships, get engaged, get married, start a family, I see that they also have other things that are building momentum in their lives: finish high school, go to college, graduate, go to grad school, get a good job. Or also, rent an apartment, live independently, buy a house. Or, plant a garden, raise chickens, get a cow, go buy a barn. These are other things that we can do with our lives. Each of us has a different path. Marriage may or may not be a part of it, and if it is, that's great. If it's not, then that's great too! 

Because of society's interpretation of romance, I had high expectations for relationships. They had to work out. There had to be a certain amount of effort put into the relationship to label it as a "relationship." I think a lot of people put expectations into their relationships. But because we all have free will, how could any of these expectations be met as we expected, unless someone was following the script written by the expecter. There's also the agony of things like "breaking up" or expressing that you aren't in love or whatever. There's almost some stigma for telling how you really feel, because there's so much of an expectation (see, there it is again) that you should be in love, and if you aren't in love, you should get in love. I think communication is so much more important. Be frank, dangit. I'm not sure how I feel about you. If a guy said that to me, props to him.

Since I was a little girl, I always thought that marriage was the epic step that I was going to take. Once I found my "true Love" the fire was going to be lit, and my life was never going to be the same. The veil would (literally) be lifted to my whole new world. Because I wanted this idea of marriage so bad, I was ready to look into the eyes of anyone who swore they loved me and think that I was going to be with them forever. To say that this semester has been one of epic change might be an understatement, because I went from, "I found the one--we're getting engaged soon! Wait until you meet him!" to, "He never really was in love with me, and it's over," and that really redrew the entire thought of true love for me. 

Or the idea of romance.  One can be romantic, one can be a friend, one can be a lover. Does one have to be in love to have true love? What is true love? Is true love that kind of love that you fall into? (because if it is, then I've fallen into true love a couple times.) If true love is that type of love, then what does it mean to fall in love? What does it mean be in a relationship? All these things are defined by the society around me, so how do I make them my own?

Right now, I'm "married" to two other women. I lived with them for the first half of the semester, and now, and soon, we will be starting our long distance relationship. Though this is a joke; I am not, in fact, a bisexual polygamist, it is what I need right now. They are my closest friends, and I hold to them, laugh with them, cry with them (sometimes after laughing), and we care for each other. We are all growing alike. We all carry our passion on our sleeve. Spending time with these girls, eating, snuggling, laughing, talking, coloring, I have grown so much in myself, and what I need to "be".

So What is love? 

(baby don't hurt me, don't hurt me, no more)

Love is what lifts us up where we belong. 

"Love it will not betray you
Dismay or enslave you, it will set you free
Be more like the man you were made to be
There is a design, an alignment, a cry
Of my heart to see,
The beauty of love as it was made to be"

--Mumford and Sons, "Sigh No More"

"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

 ⁸ Love never fails."
1 Corinthians 13: 4-8a

So what love is, who love is with, in reality, in relationships, sometimes love hurts. Sometimes those who love you do hurt you, but they still love you. Sometimes true love means letting go and moving on. Maybe true love happens many times in a life time, and you can fall into true love with many people at the same time. Maybe that's how God feels about us.