My posts seem to run in bunches. After
two meditations on marriage in the past month, here I am again.
It’s all Meryl Streep’s fault. If you know what it feels like when your kids run off together when you thought you were all going to dinner, or to struggle to remain your own person in a long marriage — whether it ends or it doesn’t, or just to be married for a long time and build a family with a partner – you know this story.
We went with another couple also married 38 years. It’s hard to describe the shared recognition, the warmth we all felt at the familiar moments on the screen – the rare family dinners with our adult children, continuing to learn and grow – together or apart, watching the accomplishments and weddings and occasional rages of each kid, accepting the fact that we’ve entered that part of life where they’re on their own – and so are we. Children grow up and earn their own lives, careers begin to ebb, and those of us who are blessed spend those years with one another. Or, if we must, search for and find someone else to ease the way.
It was all there, gentle, funny, loving and true. Like looking in a mirror. Oh – and lest you wonder whether a movie about a 50-something (or maybe 60) couple recovering from a divorce – in the torrent of high-profile films and stars, it’s in the top five for the holidays. It may be complicated, but loving it isn’t complicated at all.