Conversations with My Mother

My mother and I went to a movie together last night. A lightning storm was starting and we both expressed a preference to stay outside and watch and listen to this shared pleasure. It felt good, this moment before entering the theater. Inside it was the usual chick flick fare. Predictable and silly, perfect for popcorn.

The movie featured two sets of lovers, one young, one old. As expected, the old lovers reunite. In that moment I looked to my right to see my mother crying--I knew instantly she was thinking of her first love. It is strange, this story she told me while I was a sophomore in college about that first, intense love she ever had. He left on a mission for our church and she, for all the reasons under the sun, married someone else while he was gone. I always felt saddened for her, for her regret of this first love who entered her dreams during her first marriage (my father is her second husband). When she told me about it, I remember thinking our relationship had changed, that I needed to start seeing my mother as a complete human being with a full story and not merely as my mother.

This is her reality, or what I perceive to be her reality: romance is real and a perfect ideal which we all should seek after. True, deep, sweep-you-off-your-feet kind of love exists for her. And when a love like this envelopes you, you never forget it.

When the young lovers confessed their love for one another at the end of the film, I felt nothing. To me, the woman of 29 who has never actually been in love, it all seemed forced and unrealistic. All flossy and insubstantial. It was, after all, a movie. My reality: I think it is just shy of miraculous that anyone finds themselves compatible enough to fall in love. I believe in finding your best friend with the added benefit of chemistry (whatever that may be) and making the best of things. I think being swept off your feet sounds like major head trauma waiting to happen. While my head is in the clouds about so many other things, when it comes to love, I've had a history of disappointment and reality checks. Romantic love is flimsy at best--brain chemistry gone awry which eventually corrects itself. (And, to be fair and honest, there is a small voice called hope or wishful thinking or what-have-you that is holding vigil for the chance I'll have to eat some of these words one day.)

We exited the theater to see the storm had moved on to the north. And we started talking about our notions on love. I asked her why she cried, only to have my suspicions confirmed. I then shared this hunch I have about myself: I'm too old or too smart or too hardened or self-protective to fall in love in the manner she did. She got tangled in it, still an adolescent. I didn't necessarily mean this to sound like a good thing. To me, it is a loss, knowing I can't throw myself into something with quite the same emotional, logic-be-damned vibrance that a teenager can. I never had that opportunity. The window for such irrational but glorious frivolity is over. I'm Elinor, not Marianne.

She, on the other hand, told me she's fallen in love numerous times. None so great as that first time. And then we each quieted into our own thoughts, looking west to the last flame of sunset. And I wondered which of us was worse off. I felt a pitied sadness for my mom, for this deep regret she still holds after 45 years. This kindling inside her for someone who, frankly, is now another being entirely as is she. And then there is me, knowing love only in theory.

The light disappeared slowly from the sky. My mother gave me a hug and said farewell. I came inside to an empty apartment, dark but for the deep grey of dusk seeping in through the windows. In the distance, I could hear the rippling of thunder.

* image found here.