Have you seen the movie “I’ll See You in My Dreams”? Blythe Danner plays a woman of age who fills her days with lunches on the patio, happy hours with friends, a little golf and memories of her early career as a singer. She has been a widow for 20 years and has stayed out of the dating scene…until a friend convinces her to try “speed dating”. I won’t give anything away, but I will say the results are hysterical.
She does later meet always handsome Sam Elliott, also at a point in his life where he’s tired of being alone and “testing the waters”. Again, without revealing any plot points, suffice it to say that meeting him gets her to thinking…is it too late? Is she too entrenched in her daily regimen to welcome in a romantic partner?
Is what she had so many years ago enough for a lifetime…or is it ever enough?
I enjoyed this movie for many reasons. Blythe Danner is such a talented, glowing woman whose natural beauty shines through her wrinkles. Sam Elliott is fully white-headed and also just who he is. They don’t play games. Or try to look 30. Or immediately grab on to one another because the hourglass is emptying. I think they just meet where they are.
And I think they can do that because they are older.
it’s Nature’s last laugh it seems. When we’re young and smooth-skinned and non-bald and no stomach, we attract a lot of other attractive young bodies. But our minds can’t quite catch up sometimes. And then when our minds have figured out what truly matters and what doesn’t, we don’t feel attractive because our jeans don’t fit anymore and we need glasses and it’s a little harder to last on the dance floor.
Fear can grip us.
Do I want to try again?
Will my heart get broken?
Will he/she leave me for someone younger?
Do I have the emotional energy to date again?
Will my children accept someone new in my life?
And then the whole online thing. So many people are doing that. Some have success, others find frustration…it somehow seems backwards to trade applications and match your strong points…before ever meeting to see if that spark is there. But in today’s world, meeting people—especially after age 50—is like searching for a mouse in a cornfield. You know he/she might be out there, but you have no idea if you’ll ever cross their path.
And speed dating? Wow. They say we decide in the first 30 seconds or so whether we want to see someone again. But gosh…I fear I’d drop my index cards with my carefully written opening lines, knock over the water glass, and somehow impale myself with a fork…before I even got a word out.
Imagine who that might attract.
It’s a minefield. It brings us all, no matter our age, back to our most basic vulnerabilities. Yet in some ways, it can be easier. If we stay authentic. If we allow the other person to be the age (legs, eyes, stomach, hair/no hair) they really are. If we remember what matters most.
If we can laugh together.
And if we can just enjoy now. What do you think?
“Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere. They’re in each other all along.”
Rumi
Recent Comments