Dryxanne’s Confessions

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"I guarantee there will be tough times. And I guarantee that at one point or another, one or both of us will want to get out. But I also guarantee that if I won’t ask you to be mine, I’ll regret it for the rest of my life. Because I know in my heart you are the only one for me."  (Maggie Carpenter, by Julia Roberts, to Ike Graham, by Richard Gere, "Runaway Bride".)

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It’s my favourite line. I have my fave actor Keanu Reeves, yet I can’t recall any lines from any of his movie, which will specifically stay in my mind for a long time, nor will it remind me of anything special.

This line doesn’t remind me of any special event actually. But I just don’t know why this line always bring such a special and touching feeling to me. Maybe because I always like to see Julia Roberts’ movies, any of them. Though I wouldn’t say she’s my fave actress, but there’s something about her (and her big smile) that attracts me to her movies. And this line was even better said by her than by Gere at earlier scene. If none of you remember, Ike (portrayed by Gere) did say the exactly same line at earlier scenes of the movie, when he was asked by Maggie (portrayed by Julia Roberts), what lines he would’ve said to propose someone.

And these lines aren’t exactly those "flowery,full of passion and affection" lines. These are simple lines, expressing what the person feels right at that time, and that the person realizes that things won’t be easy, and nobody can promise things would be easy, but then, if this person never takes the chance to ask the other to be together, there will be deep regret…

And what touches my heart even deeper, was that in that scene, Maggie did it by kneeling down, very much opposite to the common practice that it is man who does the proposing. And I’ve gotta admit, Ike’s apartment, was exactly the apartment I’ve dreamed to have since I don’t know when. With the balcony, the glass door, the dim lights, the city view…And they ended it with a dance, the exact same vision I’ve always had if I ever had such kind of apartment, that I’d do a dance from the room into the balcony.

Call me crazy or whatever, I don’t know. It’s like you dream of this dream place and think that it doesn’t exist, but then bam…suddenly you see a picture of it on some magz or papers. For me, bam…I saw it on a movie…

That’s not exactly what I meant to write about.

I meant to write about how much I love that movie. Especially scenes when Maggie realized she fell for Ike, when they finally realized they both fell for each other. When they played the cards together, when she played with the hanging tire. When the song "I love you" by Martina McBride was played on the background. It’s like they found love they never thought exist between them, and the revelation was so overwhelming…

Even more touching was when Maggie (after left Ike in the altar) learned to know herself, what her fave egg was, developed herself, and realizing who she really was, instead just being chameleon like she used to do, drifting and adjusting herself to whoever her partner had been before. Those scenes showed as if, one can not begin to love other, if one hasn’t known oneself. Because if you start to think you love a person because he/she is so similar to you, have many similarities, then you merely love the reflections of yourself in them.

Which is why I think, what Maggie did was to find out herself, what was she like. After she knew it, after she knew herself, her personality, she went on to Ike, to have the only guy who had known her before she even did, the guy who had loved her as herself, long before she even knew what she herself was like.

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This movie, everytime I see it, is always like a reminder to me.

That perhaps I should know myself first, really know what I want, who I am, before claiming that I want this and that. That perhaps instead of craving for the feelings of being in love, I should start to know what exactly "love" means. Come to think of that, of all the grand definitions and meanings of love, to love and be loved, maybe what I went through for 26 years of my life, none of them (except for the love from my family) can be called real, true love.

I do believe that people can be in love easily, as to plunge yourself in the pool of love. But to stay in there, surviving, as in keeping your head above the water, while the rest of your body is still in the water (and keeping your brain to realize it is still above the water and therefore is still alive), it takes a hardwork, i.e to swim, or to float. You can’t be still, you have to keep moving, at least your feet. Otherwise you’ll start to drown. I can’t swim (and look who’s talking like a swimmer..!), but I did learn, and I know what it was like.

The same as in life.

To stay in love, to keep love and be loved, it takes hardwork and wills from both sides. That’s why "there will be tough times", and that’s why "one or both of us will want to get out".

I don’t believe I, despite of what I thought all these times, have ever done so much as to keep the love. Whether lack of chances, or wills, I don’t believe I ever went that far. I thought I did several times, but to look back again, what I did maybe merely the acts of a desperate trying to save what’s left of a wrecked relationship. Or to save what’s left of my pride that I fought so hard for things not to change.

And Maggie Carpenter reminds me that, I just haven’t reached the point she did, the point where I will really regret if I don’t ask him to be mine, for whatever price I will pay. Because I’m not that sure as Maggie was, that he is the one for me. Because I can’t figure out yet, what I really am. Because I don’t actually know what I want, or what I’ll do with things I have in hands.

I’m just simply a selfish woman who wants to posses things I want and like, only to think later what to do with them. But did I ever want something or someone so much that I was willing to let go everything else I had just to trade it?

I don’t think I ever did.