Movie: Marriage Story

Aleathia says:

Over the last few weeks, a friend of mine has been bugging me to watch a movie that he really enjoyed. The movie, "Marriage Story," is a Netflix original and has a great cast with Adam Driver, Scarlett Johansson, Laura Dern, Ray Liotta, and Alan Alda. It's hard to argue with those heavy hitters who have been in some of my favorite movies over my lifetime.
Maybe it was the wrong time of night to watch this movie, or the wrong time of the month. The height of winter, especially February, does strange things to my emotions. I generally stick to crime shows that are predictable and standard. Nothing sneaks up on me. Especially not...feelings. So there I am at eleven at night watching this movie on my phone. There is a TV on my wall, but for some unknown reason, I chose the five inch screen over the thirty-six inch one.

I don’t want to give the movie away, but it is about divorce and that painful process. For anyone who has ever had to go through this, no matter how well it was handled, it takes a toll on your heart and mind. The thing that crushed me the most were the letters each of them had to write for a divorce mediator which outlined all the things they loved about the other. Scarlett Johansson’s character decided she didn’t want to read the letter because she didn’t like what she wrote, so neither of them hears the other’s thoughts. As a consumer of the film, we get to know what the letters contained.

What struck me most ,at the end of the movie, was that if they had read those letters to each other it could have mitigated all the painful actions in between. It showed me how far away we get from the reasons we fall in love in the first place. This can happen outside a marriage, in any relationship that starts to turn sour. When we begin to push away from our partner it is as if all those joys and idiosyncrasies that made the person attractive become the bullet points for an argument against.

My separation was a long time ago and the divorce followed slowly as we tried to be nice to each other and I fretted over paperwork not wanting to involve lawyers. A year or so ago we actually talked about the divorce for the first time. It had been twelve years. What we found was that neither of us knew what the other had felt or thought about the whole process, and lack of communication on both sides had destroyed the marriage. There were some great lessons learned through that conversation, but I’m not sure it would have saved the relationship at the time. It would have made the parting better for all parties, including our five year old.

After the separation and divorce, I had a series of unsuccessful relationships, each ending worse than the one before until the last one left me feeling like love was never an option again. Love is hard. It feels great but it is work and communication mixed in with all the mystery and wonder of meeting a new human. For me, love is always laced with fear. I do a lot of waiting for the other shoe to fall, and I know this makes me less likely to enjoy those moments of heart flutter and smiling.

“Marriage Story” is a great movie, but be warned that it can be triggering. It isn’t to say that I didn’t need to look at these things in my life and inspect why I react this way to love and the end of relationships. Grab a tissue...a box of tissues. Buckle yourself in. Have a friend on standby.

Painted Glass and the Meaning of Life, a poem

Aleathia says:

We walked to the museum in perfect weather.
It felt like an eternity since we had shared
something simple but important.

5 years looming on the horizon
and I’ve forgotten who I was before you arrived.

I contemplate the significance of this
in the grand scheme of life.

Have I lost myself?
Have we grown too comfortable?
What does that even mean?
But I say nothing.
Live in this moment, I tell myself.

We look at sculptures in the white, stark wing
and comment on pieces we love revisiting,
take note of new specimens.

The painted, hazy glass catches my attention.

I am alone in front of it, my body a blur in the center.
I feel lost in the world. You come and stand beside me,
the blur gets larger and changes shape.

It is something new. The piece is new, we are new.
I take our picture, a portrait, I say. You half smile
and say nothing.

I am home.
I am where I am supposed to be.

Aleathia Drehmer 2016

6/28/2015 The World is but a Stage

Aleathia says:

"Remember that the best relationship is one in which your love for each other exceeds your need for each other.” --H.H. Dalai Lama

This weekend I celebrated my 42nd birthday.  I have essentially, if I maintain good health, have lived half my possible life already.  It has been filled with so many events both sorrowful and joyful.  In the last 4 years I have been lucky enough to have Michael in my life helping me grow as a human, as a woman, and as a mother.

We have birthdays one day apart so we usually go away together to a cabin and celebrate life while also mourning the loss of his mother who took her own life on his birthday.  It has been my mission since I met him to help him find some sense of peace and happiness on his birthday again.  My life would be so much less without him.  This year was the first year his sorrow did not outweigh the grace of his birthday.

On these special weekends we have time to really talk uninterrupted, laugh, cry, make fools of ourselves without worry, and rejoice in the beauty of the lives we have created around us.  I find these trips vital to our friendship and our relationship.  He has said to me on many occasions that relationships are work and if they fall apart then not enough effort was put into it.  Each of us brings challenges to the table and both of us have had to find some zen in our hearts to bear the other on occasion, but never has it seemed like too much work.  Our relationship is always worth the effort.

My birthday consisted of torrential downpour from the time we woke up until the time we went to bed.  We were essentially cabin bound and the plans for hiking the woods thwarted, but we made the best of it.  Later in the evening he began to tell me that he felt our relationship was special because until he met me he felt as if he had never been truly loved by anyone.  I stood there in the kitchen with my heart breaking at this thought.  He is so talented and charming and funny.  He is a man of morals and a great thinker.  It was probably the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.  It was the best birthday present I have ever gotten.

To know you have made someone feel loved, loved so much they have to love you back in the same way is the most wonderful thing imaginable.  I am a lucky woman.  We are lucky in love.  I thank my stars for that every day.

OM-5/11/2014 Buddhism, Expectations

Aleathia says:

First of all, Happy Mother's Day.  I hope all of you ladies who have taken on the responsibility of rearing children enjoy a day to celebrate what a hard job this is.  It is a daunting task to prepare another human to go out into the world that will be all together foreign to you both.  The child lives in the world of today and often, as parents and mothers, we are in the world that was. This is why we find ourselves distanced from our children as they get older.

After my mother died, I realized this notion.  I see now that what I pushed away all those years ago is exactly where I am today.  I speak the virtues of the world to my own child who does not listen to me; who thinks I'm crazy and doesn't know what I am talking about.  Weren't we all so expansive and closed at the same time?

Today's video is of Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche who is from Bhutan.  I like his manner and the way he connects everyday things to deep concepts.  In the video he candidly speaks about relationships and professions.

Relationships:

"Many times we have too strong expectations, negative and positive....that always ruins the relationship"-Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche

When I heard this particular talk I had to laugh, because it is so true.  We place such high expectations on everyone we know and sometimes these are not goals they want or need to achieve for themselves.  It made me think about my own relationship with my daughter.  I expect so much of her and I am deeply pained when she fails the bar I have set.  It is hard for me to understand whether I should not have expectations for her and let her land where she may...which could be deep suffering, or do I continue to challenge her sensibilities?  This is something to think about in a serious way.



Professions:

"Many young people are too idealistic, they like to do things like musician and art.  They end up mixing their hobby and work...my advice is to do the job you don't like to do so that you can do the rest."-Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche

This is so important for the generation of children today.  In the world right now with our economy there are so many students with degrees in fields that yield them nothing.  They have no jobs, no prospect of work and are forced to take on jobs well below their education and ability to make ends meet.  What I take from this is do a career that is industrious, one that has longevity.  You can gain from it the time and money to pursue the things you love.  When you make your hobby your job, you have nothing fun to do outside of work.