Last night, my mom and I sat on opposite ends of the couch in her comfy basement, a bowl of caramel popcorn between us, to start the film "Love Actually." The film's fantastic: a cast of famous characters ranging from Hugh Grant to Emma Thompson to Keira Knightley, and intersecting plot lines that are heartwarming for various reasons that are not all cliche. Although I've seen the film several times, I never tire of it. . .and I always cry.
I cry, and I think, damn Christmas movies, because even "White Christmas" makes me cry. I cry when the judge in "Miracle on 34th Street" declares that Kris Kringle is, indeed, Santa; and I cry when George Bailey realizes his life is precious and important in "It's a Wonderful Life." Again and again, the Christmas movies insist on the magic of the season, on the particular recipe of white lights and cold air and the possible jingle of sleigh bells. The recipe that allows unlikely people to fall in love with each other, or unhappy people to become transformed.
The last time I watched "Love Actually," in Christmas 2011, I sat with my arms crossed the entire movie, bitter while my mom laughed in delight. It had only been two months since A___ died, and I didn't want to be in the world anymore either. Guilt and sorrow and love weighted my bones, made it difficult to move. No happy story in "Love Actually" would end happily, I thought cynically, newly wise. Our story was supposed to be one of those where all has been an enormous misunderstanding, where a few months have elapsed but then I turn around in the sunshine and she is standing there, looking at me the way she always did. And we are on the coast of Spain, or in a villa in Italy.
But no, instead, she was dead, and there's actually no way love can continue forward from that point.
That was two years ago. Two years. I dreamed the other night that she did walk toward me across green grass, and that I stood in a red barn organizing, and my heart filled with such gladness to see her, to know we were going to get our second chance after all. Always, she's real to me, just around the corner, waiting.
None of that explains why, after "Love Actually" ended and my mom took the empty popcorn bowl and kissed me on the forehead before she headed upstairs to bed, I took out my laptop and created a profile on match.com. Ugh. I feel nauseous just writing it. The entire hour it took me to answer all the questions, my body numbed as if I was committing some horrible crime. This morning, when I sat at the breakfast table with my daughter and my mom and step-dad, the mere thought of my smiling face and "36-year-old woman" on a profile page on match.com turned my stomach. What a mistake. I'm not ready and never will be. I found my "love actually" in A___ and one or both of us read the script wrong, and now it's ended. No more takes.
But now I've just checked the site, 24 hours later. I'm not the only lonely lesbian in this area looking for at least like-minded companionship, a hiking partner, someone to share a coffee. If I'm brave, I could respond to some of these notes I'm getting already. Or I could delete my profile now.
Part of me wants to wear black and stay celibate in mourning forever. Part of me wants to live. I could depend on the chance encounter sometime in the next decade, or I could advertise, which is what sites like match.com do. Here I am. Waiting. I marked the categories for "widow" and "one child at home". . . I'm not a simple match. But I never have been.
If I don't do this in the window of this season, with all the magic in the air, etc., etc., I won't do it at all. So. . .I'll leave the profile up for a week, just to see. After all, a cup of coffee with a woman would be nice. . .
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