Mended Heart

I am longer in the almost non-existent minority of people who have yet to see Love Jones and I can totally see what all the hype was about. You may be wondering how it is possible that I have evaded this seminal and very important film. I will tell you like I told my friends, "I got reasons!"

The truth is that I have only one reason. I have always associated that movie with heartbreak and up until this weekend have never been able to see past the gut-wrenching pain of my youth (everything hurts more and is so much more dramatic when you are young) to be able to find it in me to watch. This weekend was different for a few reasons.

1. My husband is much hotter than the guy who dumped me the weekend it came out to go with another girl because he felt I was taking to long to make our relationship official.
2. He found it on sale in that $5 movie bin at Wal-Mart.
3. I have to admit that I have ALWAYS wanted to see and just needed the right circumstances.

Husband came home from shopping with that gleam in his eyes and that smile on his face that lets me know that he has just done something that he is proud of and can't wait for me to be excited too. Usually, I am not, but I pretend because he is SO cute to me. (Like when he has "helped" by doing laundry) He stepped in and said, "Look what I got for us..." and presented the movie.

My first reaction was a mix of delight and disgust because to be honest even the mention of that movie sends me right back to that phone conversation where he tells me that not just that we are not going together, but that he went with another girl. It doesn't stop there. He then tells me that this other girl is now his girlfriend. I guess those months together were just practice for him to get ready for a real relationship. (I must say that I also took great satisfaction from the fact that a few months later this girl cheated on him. Karma ROCKS!)
The point is that up until now I have never been able to separate the experience from the movie, but Husband was so excited I just could not say no.

The perk of knowing someone as long as I have know Husband is that he knows all my history. The downside of having known your husband since you were 14 and spending at least those first 10 years as real friends is that he knows all my history. This means he knows all about me and Heartbreaker. He also knows that I played the Love Jones CD on repeat for months and can still recite A Blues for Nina at the drop of a hat- all without having ever seen a single scene. I have never even stumbled upon it on cable. The other fun thing about having married someone who really is one of your best friends is that he will never hesitate to call me on my stuff and refuses to let me stay in my mess and I guess he felt like I had milked this one long enough. We were going to watch it together and he, as usual, was going to be with me as I healed and overcame a past hurt.

It was, in a word, AWESOME! It was the most real, sexy, amazing relationship movie I think that I have ever seen. All I wanted to do after seeing it was talk about it, but the truth is I am the only person I know for whom this is a new experience and most of my friends just assume that I have seen it. Telling them that I haven't means I would have to explain about Heartbreaker over and over again. Then I realized that I don't care.

I had a great time watching a love story with the man that I love. I am excited. I feel like a new door has been opened to me and to have that experience with Husband only makes our relationship richer.

I got a love jones, for real!