Serendipity
Yesterday I was being quite lethargic; I sat on the couch all day, studied, and watching movie after movie on TBS. At 11, Serendipity, that John Cusack movie, came on. It got me thinking about love and whether or not everyone is destined to have it (as pretty much anything these days does).
Why is it so much harder for people to fall in love these days? I look at my parents, my aunts and uncles, even my cousins who are a lot older than me, and it seems like everyone has their amazing soulmate, happening upon them as easily as I would a penny when I'm walking down Washington Avenue. There are so many examples of such amazing love stories from our elders... but then you look at people our age (give or take 10 years), divorcing like incompatible magnets or else in their 30s without a serious relationship (marriage or one ending in such).
What the hell is going on? We see these people who are a bit older than us not being married till their 30s, what's next, us not being married til our 40s? Is it that we don't let ourselves love? Are we afraid of failure? I know that personally, I don't like taking risks that depend on anyone but myself. So is that the mentality everyone else has, too? Does everyone have the I'm-in-control-of-my-professional-life-and-I-want-to-have-the-same-control-in-my-social-life syndrome? Or maybe it's this whole thing with "I want to put my career first" and that "50 is the new 30" with women. FIFTY! Pretty soon it'll be that 60 is the new 30. Since when? People don't live forever. And the last half of the life of the average person is plagued by illness, so how can we keep delaying our chance at a real life?
Sure, go ahead and tell yourself that you don't care, if it happens that you end up single, it's not big deal. I'm not gonna worry about it. Or perhaps you'll take the route my friend Maggie decides to take and say "Everything is bound to work out." But will it?
It doesn't seem likely to me anymore. When I was a little girl, I imagined such amazing romance in my future, but now it's like that little girl was so stupid and naive. Shit doesn't go down that way.
What I know is that I miss the old Gone With The Wind, Casablanca, and Breakfast at Tiffany's romance. What happened to people that that kind of love is just a fantasy? Or was it a fantasy to begin with? Oh God, I hope not.
It doesn't seem fair to have this kind of amazing, unachievable love dangled in front of us and none of us are able to get it. Yeah, yeah, I'm too young to think of all this everlasting love stuff, but remember I'm an Egyptian girl. We pretty much are thinking of this stuff in the womb (I'm pretty sure all my Egyptian girls can attest to that).
Anyway, whichever choice we have in love, it's probably not going to be us ending up sitting in an empty saloon we own, listening to a black dude play "As Time Goes On", pining over a lost love like Humphrey Bogart --it'll probably be over a love never found.
Is that fair in the grand scheme of things? Probably not. But since when was life fair?
Why is it so much harder for people to fall in love these days? I look at my parents, my aunts and uncles, even my cousins who are a lot older than me, and it seems like everyone has their amazing soulmate, happening upon them as easily as I would a penny when I'm walking down Washington Avenue. There are so many examples of such amazing love stories from our elders... but then you look at people our age (give or take 10 years), divorcing like incompatible magnets or else in their 30s without a serious relationship (marriage or one ending in such).
What the hell is going on? We see these people who are a bit older than us not being married till their 30s, what's next, us not being married til our 40s? Is it that we don't let ourselves love? Are we afraid of failure? I know that personally, I don't like taking risks that depend on anyone but myself. So is that the mentality everyone else has, too? Does everyone have the I'm-in-control-of-my-professional-life-and-I-want-to-have-the-same-control-in-my-social-life syndrome? Or maybe it's this whole thing with "I want to put my career first" and that "50 is the new 30" with women. FIFTY! Pretty soon it'll be that 60 is the new 30. Since when? People don't live forever. And the last half of the life of the average person is plagued by illness, so how can we keep delaying our chance at a real life?
Sure, go ahead and tell yourself that you don't care, if it happens that you end up single, it's not big deal. I'm not gonna worry about it. Or perhaps you'll take the route my friend Maggie decides to take and say "Everything is bound to work out." But will it?
It doesn't seem likely to me anymore. When I was a little girl, I imagined such amazing romance in my future, but now it's like that little girl was so stupid and naive. Shit doesn't go down that way.
What I know is that I miss the old Gone With The Wind, Casablanca, and Breakfast at Tiffany's romance. What happened to people that that kind of love is just a fantasy? Or was it a fantasy to begin with? Oh God, I hope not.
It doesn't seem fair to have this kind of amazing, unachievable love dangled in front of us and none of us are able to get it. Yeah, yeah, I'm too young to think of all this everlasting love stuff, but remember I'm an Egyptian girl. We pretty much are thinking of this stuff in the womb (I'm pretty sure all my Egyptian girls can attest to that).
Anyway, whichever choice we have in love, it's probably not going to be us ending up sitting in an empty saloon we own, listening to a black dude play "As Time Goes On", pining over a lost love like Humphrey Bogart --it'll probably be over a love never found.
Is that fair in the grand scheme of things? Probably not. But since when was life fair?
posted by Ayah @ 2:37 PM
1 Comments:
At 5:03 PM,
Stephanie said…
AMEN. i've had this terrible habit of contemplating love since.. yeah, forever. throw me into an old time movie anyday, because the "real world" is pretty messy ("pretty" being a fairly huge understatement).. i don't know. as for me, i'd like to think that if you are a romantic at heart you will be rewarded someday in the not-too-distant future. but, you know, the cynical side of me laughs at the romantic within me. maybe i should get the multiple personality thing checked out.. haha, no, kidding. kick ass blog, ayah. keep writing. love, stephanie
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