Last night Ryan and I watched "Say Anything." Let me clarify- we watched my 22 year old VHS tape of "Say Anything". I wondered, as it crackled, if it would explode right there in the VCR, but it chugged along through a preview of "War of the Roses" and into the most influential movie of my teenage years.Much like my junior high viewing of "Labyrinth" sparked a lifelong obsession with David Bowie (if you've seen it, all I have to say is David in grey tights, either you love it or it grosses you out!) this movie was my high school relationship model. Shockingly, with Lloyd Dobler as my standard , I barely dated in high school. I crushed from afar on the unavailable types- the drama nerds, the preppy religious types who I shared honors English with, the bad boys, most of whom did not know I existed or wouldn't have given me a second thought if they did. The one semi-boyfriend I had turned out to be gay...which explains why all we ever did was play tennis! I wanted a guy like Lloyd...basic, as Diane calls him in the movie, trustworthy, sensitive, goofy. The climatic scene where Diane and Lloyd make love in his car on the beach...sigh. I rewound and rewatched that scene hundreds of times, thirsting for a boy who would cradle my chin in his big, strong hands as he kisses me and shake because he's happy. I would get a bursting, ecstatic feeling in my chest, (where I now know the heart chakra exists) a feeling I thought I would experience with the right lover.
I held this as my ideal for decades...wondering why I hadn't found that one yet, even as I married and had children. I married out of familiarity instead of passion. I had still not experienced that ecstasy, that overwhelming, all encompassing feeling of safety, excitement and satisfaction that I yearned for yet had pushed to the back of my heart, doubting its' existence. It was frustrating and sad.
And then I met Ryan.
As we watched the movie, I told him all of this.
"The world is full of guys...be a man!" Lloyd's girl friends tell him.
"That's you! That's you! You're a man in a world of guys!" I tell Ryan.
"Am I basic?" he hesitantly asks, not sure if that is a good or a bad thing.
"Yes" I answer. It is a good thing.
Basic is good, he's simple and uncomplicated. Basic doesn't try to be something he's not and he loves you for who you are. He soothes your fears and loves you even when you are mean and crazy, and makes you feel safe and beautiful, always.
He holds your face in his hands and makes your heart giddy.
I will never, ever break up with him by giving him a pen and telling him to write me.
