Heavy Sigh.
As I watched it, with a man I've been dating beside me, I found myself incredibly uncomfortable. I felt like I was supposed to buy into the idea that love looks like that. I felt like I was suddenly daft and ignorant to how relationships work and what love is. I felt exactly like the movie wanted me to feel....caught up in the fairy tale and folded into the story line...lost in their beauty and discontent with my own.
I left the theater thinking that I had missed the boat on great love because none of my relationships looked like that.
We walked out silently while I tried to hold it together. My mind was full of my own failures at romance and the fear that it will never happen again for me. I was deconstructing all my relationships and all the reasons we shouldn't have dated. Mostly, it was because we couldn't sing, he doesn't make me cry, and he would never write me a love song.
Firm eye roll.
I carried these emotions with me into the next day. And the next day, which was the dreaded court date over custody of my boys. I sat in that office while my lawyer made my case, across from my ex-husband, and felt overwhelmed with failure and fear. The result was not in my favor. I gathered up my large file of why their dad should get less time with them, picked up what dignity I had left, and exited the building where my life had just changed. Again.
I spent the entire day crying. Hard, ugly crying. I had to wear sunglasses to pick my boys up so they, and the rest of the world, wouldn't see my pain.
My friends and family called, but I couldn't hear the disappointment in their voice. I couldn't hear their "I told you so" tone (that was most likely just in my imagination). I couldn't hear any encouragement or positivity. Nothing was going to be received. I avoided the phone calls. The one thing I was able to do was Marco Polo (video app) one of my besties who lets me video journal my life. I talked unhinged. By the end of the day, my eyes were swollen and painful.
Through my unfiltered blubberings to my bestie, many things became apparent.
1. I had bought into the lie that my life was harder than other people's.
2. I was ill equipped to handle the difficulty.
3. I would never find great love like Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper. (Insert a sarcastic, but gravely serious, chuckle.)
4. I would never love and be loved again.
The beauty in surrounding yourself with people who know and love you...and are themselves incredible people, is that their truths combat your lies.
When I was ready to receive it, my dear friend spoke truth over me.
1. My life is not unique in that it is filled with difficulty. Join the freakin' club, sister.
2. The same God who parted the Red Sea, who tore down the walls of Jericho and who raised Jesus from the dead is the One who is with you. Nothing is too difficult for Him.
3. I found great love like Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper, despite the fact that neither one of us could sing. He was also an alcoholic and it also ended. (As it should have...but huge, freakin' sigh.)
4. I may not find love again...but my life is full despite not having someone to share it with. And for the first time in a long while I'm fine alone. (Not happy alone...not content alone ... but fine.)
We're all just broken people trying to find our place in the world. Our place may or may not be in a romantic relationship. And it certainly doesn't include Bradley Cooper (another huge, freakin' sigh). But this star, like Lady Gaga, was born out of brokenness.