This morning I decided to watch the
movie Dear John. Stupid idea. Why I decided to watch that movie this morning is
something I’m still trying to figure out. I had never seen the movie before
this morning and thought “hey, I have the morning to myself because Joe is
still sleeping and I am tired of watching the Discovery channel or war films; a
good chick flick sounds nice.” Of course I chose the tearjerker about a war
torn couple. It stars Channing Tatum (John) as a special forces soldier and
Amanda Seyfried (Savannah) as his girlfriend he meets while on leave. They
decide to write each other letters while he is away to stay in contact and keep
their relationship alive while thousands of miles away from each other. He
tells her that he has one more year left in the Army and that he will be done
after that year. He promises her that he will be back. Then September 11th
happened and changed everything for them.
While watching this film, I thought
a lot about my life with Joe. When they hugged and kissed each other before he
left, I remembered how it felt when I left New Jersey: our last hug and kiss
for months. When he returned, I remembered how it felt to see him in uniform in
the airport for the first time in two years. When he told her he was going
back, I remembered the last Skype conversation we had before he left for
Afghanistan after his R&R. When he got shot, I remembered how it felt to
get the 5 am phone call from Marissa. Overall, this film was a reminder of my
life up to this point within the first 45 minutes. I cried for the first half
of the movie because I knew the exact feelings that they were trying to
portray.
Granted a MAJOR difference in the
film and my life was that she eventually broke things off with him, which was a
turning point for me in the film where I no longer enjoyed it and watched the
rest of it angry over that fact that she was so stupid. She should have known
what she was getting herself into by starting a relationship with a soldier.
She had it in her mind that he was going to get out of the Army a year after
his leave, but as I have quickly learned the military lifestyle doesn’t always
go the way it was supposed to or was planned to. If it went the way it was
supposed to and the way I had planned, Joe would be coming back this week in
perfect condition. Life doesn’t always go the way as planned, especially in the
military.
Savannah didn’t realize what she
was getting into. She saw a charming hunk with no shirt on running on the beach
with a surfboard. He loved her and she loved him. He comes back to her for a
short amount of time after September 11th before he reenlisted, without
telling her that was his intent, she throws a fit and eventually goes with his
plan to stay with his guys and return overseas, she had no real choice. The
decision is obviously not easy for him either because he wants to be with her
just as much as she wants to be with him, but he has his responsibilities to
his men, his job, and his country. I wish with all my heart that Joe had stayed
with me here instead of going back. I wish with all my heart that Joe never got
hurt over there, but I knew what I was getting into and knew that this all was
a possibility.
Dear John is a book written by
tearjerker extraordinaire Nicholas Sparks and that the film was made primarily
to make a profit and make girls across the country cry, but for those of us
that live it and wait for our men to come back it was a lot more than that. It
was a reminder of what our life is about and the men that we love with all our
heart. We write letters and stare at the moon knowing that halfway around the
world they are looking at it too. We live our lives not knowing what is going
to happen next or if they are going to come home in one piece or at all. We
remember our last hug and kiss before they get on the plane knowing that we
won’t get that feeling again until that long awaited moment when we finally see them in the airport and all those days spent waiting are only a memory.
Stage five in the Journey of
Unexpecting the Unexpected.
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