Chasing Me

You know the cliche. Time stands still. But it's true as well. Time stops. It pauses in the moments that seem like agonizing hours between what you want to say and what you do say. And sometimes, particularly in the matters of the heart, you struggle with the words. You manage to stumble and stutter because the words you're about to say, the ones that are about to leave your lips, well you can't take them back, no matter how hard you try. Those words, "I love you," are stuck out there, hanging in the air between you and the person to whom you said those words.

And also hanging there is the aftermath of those words, the consequences of that "I love you." Obligation attaches to those words. Responsibility and commitment are behind those words, and if you don't mean them, you don't say them.

You don't say them because you fear your heart crushing if she rejects you, walks out the door, leaving your face twisted in pain. You stepped up and she stepped on the love you held out ever so gently.

But that's the risk you take when you dare love someone. You risk pain to get joy. It's like the quick shock of pain you feel when you put your shoulder back into place. You have to get through the hurt in order to feel the relief that comes immediately after.

Love is that thing where you just have to dive in and hope you don't drown. You have to push through the fear and have faith that this thing you put your soul into will survive, even when you know that there are no guarantees, that 10 years from the moment you said those words, this thing could fall apart. Hell, it could dissipate in the seconds after you say those words.

"I love you." Those words rarely pass my lips to any woman. I'm like all those sorry-assed men in romantic comedies, the ones with the walls built up over years of hurt and who are about to lose the "one," the one they're supposed to be with for the rest of their lives if only they could muster up the courage to say "I love you."

Closest I've gotten is "I like you," like you enough to kiss you, like you enough to hold your hands along busy city streets, like you enough to hold you in my arms on crowded dance floors. But not enough to turn like into love for the rest of my life.

I haven't crossed that threshold yet. So I look at this scene in Kevin Smith's highly underrated film, Chasing Amy, and am chilled at Holden's speech, even though I've seen it dozens of times over the years.

This is no cheesy Jerry Maguire/Tom Cruise "You complete me" speech followed by the "You had me at hello" from Renee Zellweger (God, that was cheesy and vomit-inducing dialogue created by the folks who give you Hallmark cards but I have to admit I was moved the first time I saw it).

No, what Holden (played by Ben Affleck who apparently can be a decent actor when he's not masquerading as an action star) gives is a dangerous, impossibly eloquent declaration of love in a way I wish I could if I were ever in the position of trying to convince a lesbian to go straight for me. And he knows what he's risking. He could lose a friendship. This could completely blow up in his face, and homegirl might just come to the conclusion that dude's a nutjob who has a "puppy-dog" crush as well as a frat-boy fantasy of making out with a lesbian.

The fact that it doesn't all come shattering down on his head (at least in that moment) is not surprising considering that this is a movie after all. Miracles happen all the time in movies, no matter how implausible they might seem.

But what gets me everytime is the unbelievable honesty and sincerity captured in that speech, the "oh screw it and go for it" bravado that Holden displays.

Sometimes in this life, you have to damn the consequences and do what John Mayer says, say what you feel. Say it with so much force and soul and guts and everything else that the other person has to hear you, has to see you and feel you. You have to spit, spill, leak it out so whatever you have inside of you fills the cup of life.

Yeah, that was hokey but that doesn't mean it's no less true. And it doesn't mean you pour out your soul to just anybody. That person has to be worth hearing your truth.

You'll know it, just as Holden knew it, that this moment, this pause between saying what you feel and saying nothing at all, could change your life in unimaginable ways and that the risk was worth it.

Because in the end, not saying anything when you should be saying everything is your voice wasted.

The poet Audre Lorde once said this in her poem, A Litany for Survival: "When we are loved, we are afraid love will vanish/ when we are alone, we are afraid love will never return/ and when we speak we are afraid our words will never be heard nor welcomed/ but when we are silent, we are still afraid/ so it is better to speak remembering we were never meant to survive."

So speak.

Good Mike Hunting

"Some people call them imperfections but that's the good stuff." -- Sean, Good Will Hunting
I love that line. It comes from a scene in Good Will Hunting where Sean is telling Will about his wife and how she used to fart in bed. He tells Will that one time his wife farted so loud that it woke her up. That was three years ago, he tells Will, and that's the things he most remembers, those imperfections only he knew about his wife. And he calls those imperfections the "good stuff."
How can imperfections be considered the "good stuff"? How can imperfection be considered good? We spend our lives trying to be perfect, trying to make the right decisions, trying to live the straight and narrow, trying to make up for the mistakes of our past.
But we often forget we're human, that we're flawed, that we are almost bound to screw up. That doesn't mean we don't take responsibility for our choices and it doesn't mean that some people screw up on such a grand scale that they deserve whatever is coming to them (i.e. people who continuously break the law, the ones who murder and rape and pillage without any concern for anyone else's welfare).
I'm talking about imperfection, the little quirks in our DNA that make us who we are, make us the strange, irritating, intriguing people we are.
I sometimes cringe at my high school self, the one who wore Hammer-like pants my cousin gave me as a Christmas gift my freshman year. Laughter from my classmates still ring my ears. I was acne-scarred, nerdy, and annoying. I harassed women on a regular basis because I was too chicken-shit to pursue them properly. At times, I was quiet to the point of being mute and other times, I was a wiseacre hiding my self-esteem issues.
And at 37, I'm still weird, but much more confident in the imperfections I have. At the very least, I'm more aware of the imperfections that I need to change and the imperfections that are simply a part of who I am.
The woman I marry will unfortunately find me a verbal equivalent of William Faulkner, given to stream-of-conscious conversations that flit from one topic to another like some kid afflicted with ADD. She will find me often disorganized to the point of insanity and hopelessly movie-obsessed. But I hope that the craziness that inhabits me will be balanced by the good qualities I do have. Knowing my imperfections allows me to accept the imperfections of another.
In my younger days, I imagined my wife to be some combination of Halle Berry, Ananda Lewis, Sanaa Lathan and Angela Bassett, all examples of exceptionally beautiful, strong, intelligent black women.
But at least in the case of Halle Berry, I realized that no matter how beautiful yo appear outside, you might have some issues on the interior. After all, Halle Berry has been through two very public relationships (David Justice and Eric Benet) that ended horribly and probably left some emotional scars.
I've learned you have to look beyond the finely-shaped behind and the bouncy breasts and the piercing eyes. Dive deep and find the soul beneath. Relish the imperfections.
Because in the end, those imperfections, the secrets that you and your significant other share, are the ones that you will cherish after the lust has faded. Good Will Hunting is a movie about acknowledging and accepting your past for what it was and moving on, seeing how that past shaped you as a person for good and bad, and seeing your imperfections not as a curse but as an indelible part of who you are. It is what it is. And you have a choice. You wallow in the pity-party of why you couldn't be someone else. Or you accept who you are, change the really bad stuff, and get comfortable in your skin. Because it's the only skin you got.