Ya-Ya!

It’s easier to learn from someone else’s mistakes when they are a character in a movie rather than your mom or sister or friend. Because with most characters in movies you can say, that’s me! I’m totally like that… I would totally do that… I think that way… I’d say that too… it’s like I’m watching myself and my own life story. I just watched the Divine secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood yesterday. I totally identify with Viviane Walker; the Ashley Judd/Ellen Burstyn character that was bat sheet wacko. I have a strong belief that I’m going to crack up one day, mentally just go bananas; and that character, Vivi, that’s who I’ll be in twenty years. And Siddalee is Laine, with thousands of dollars spent on therapy and having a special relationship with her father, but with conversations like “Daddy, did you get loved enough?” “What’s enough? My question is, did you?”
I really believe that‘s the future for my family. It’s not something that I want, of course, but it is something that I can see happening. Can’t you?
Anyway, I was watching that movie and I was totally into it, crying and laughing. I hadn’t totally lost myself in a movie in a while, but this one sucks me in, way more now than when I watched years ago, probably because I have kids now.
Anyway! All of that to say that at the end of the movie, Siddalee and Viviane are sitting on a porch swing and the mom is finally going to apologize to the daughter and I was so wrapped up in Ellen Burstyn at that moment, I was stuck staring at her face quietly begging her to tell me how exactly you apologize for being crazy and I guess it’s best that she doesn’t really. I love that movie, I love those characters, I love that story and all the conversations and Bloody Mary’s and James Garner is THE MAN. But out of the whole movie the main thing I got from it was this quote and the hope that I’ll be able to see everything I’ve prayed for myself to come true for Laine.

“There are some things for which...I don't expect to be forgiven. Not by my children. Not even by God. There are some things for which it would be ludicrous to say... I'm sorry. It'd be so, so pale.
I've been thinking about what I'd say to you, should we ever speak again. I thought of all the mean things that'd make you feel guilty. You know me. I take a problem and chew on it until all the flavor's gone...and then I stick it in my hair.
And then it dawned on me. All those years that I prayed, that I begged on my hands and knees for God to make me more, give me more, make me better, make me stronger, make me saner, make all my dreams come true…I finally got an answer.
You.”