P.S. I love you

I love a good sappy romantic story.  Apparently.  I just checked out DVD for The Notebook from the library even though I've seen it many, many times (and read it a couple of times, too).

Yes, I admit it.  I like Nicholas Sparks. 

Apparently I've watched more Rachel McAdams movies than I realize, because I own The Time Traveler's Wife, and just went to see the recent release The Vow.

Movies, actually, have often been a release for me.  An escape into another world where the deprivation inside the theater helps one to be completely focused on the story being unfolded in front of you.  (Unless, of course, the bozo three rows down to the right is texting his friend, but that's another issue)

I have had one long term 10+ years relationship and several smaller ones lasting around 2 years each. 

I remember during one particularly tense time with the 10+ year lover when I escaped to the movies.  Hillary Swank was starring with Gerard Butler in this tragicomic (there was some humor in there) love story of a man who dies too young, and knowing he will not be there for his young bride, he plans a number of surprises to help her through the grieving process.  Several letters with instructions arrive.  And at the end of each, he writes, "P.S. I love you." 

A love that survives even death.  Such a strong classic romantic notion.  That had me bawling as the relationship I thought, then, was supposed to be that for me was falling apart. 

One of my favorite all time movies is What Dreams May Come with Annabella Sciorra and Robin Williams.  Another love story about how true and great love survives even death.  I was very fortunate to see that movie for the first time in a theater.  When the paint splashed on the canvas in such vivid intensity, I was completely mesmerized.  That was the movie that had to break in each successive higher definition big screen television because the images on it were so vivid.  It was a movie I'd seen before the 10+ year relationship, but I owned it and watched it several times with her.

During this same period, our nephew got a new crisp high definition flat screen television, and so I brought the movie over and one night we watched it together, he and I.

If you haven't seen the movie, I apologize because I will spoil it for you here.  Basically the moral of the story is that if you really love someone, you'll allow yourself to go crazy with them to show your love to them, and then, ideally, bring them out of the hell that they are in as a result of their craziness. 

Watching that, and dealing with my own life falling apart as my partner was afflicted with mental illness herself and seeing that as one Hollywood solution was very hard for me to realize and reconcile.  Ultimately, I could not make the sacrifice that Chris, Robin Williams' character, made.  But then, our situations were a little different.

Recently a tryst, for lack of a better word, has ended and I am grieving, yet again.  It was much more complicated than that, and time will only tell if SHE was the one, but for the purposes of this post, it is all you need to know.  I commiserate lately with another friend also grieving a relationship (boy, aren't we a lot of fun?).

And at some point in our daily conversation - which usually takes place over e-mail - I'll write my friend and tell her:  "P.S. I miss her"

When I was younger, I was wiser.  I knew, then, that I would simply have a series of monogamous relationships.  I am a child of divorce, so despite my love of romantic movies, I have some cynical leanings as well.  Wait until I fall again, though, and see which win out.  I get all foolish and silly and wonder if she is the one.  Forgetting, that I will have a lot of ones.

In the meantime, by the way, in case you might have forgotten, I miss her.

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