The Vow

March 26, 2016

Recently Jaron took me on a wonderful cruise.  We spent 4 days with no kids, just the two of us.  We read books, ate good food, sat in the sun, and enjoyed being together.  We had such a wonderful time.  I spent a lot of time soaking up the sun and thinking about my life and about happiness.  On this cruise I truly felt at peace and I felt very much in love with Jaron.

Though this was Jaron’s first cruise,  I have been on a couple of cruises before this one.  There is something that all cruises have in common.  They have a tv in each room but there isn’t much to watch.  Usually they have one movie that is played over and over throughout the day.  After it gets over, they restart it over again.  Depending on when you are in your room, you see different parts of the movie.  I remember on a caribbean cruise I went on when I was 14, they were playing Shawshank Redemption.  I am sure I saw the whole movie, but only in 10 to 15 minute segments and definitely not in chronological order.  I love that movie.  My favorite quote is, “Get busy living, or get busy dying.”  

On this cruise with Jaron, the movie The Vow was played over and over on the TV.  I have seen this movie before, but it was a good one, so I was happy to watch it again.  This movie starts with two people falling in love.  The girl is an artist and the boy is a music producer.  They are in love and they get married.  Then they get in a terrible car accident.  Though they survive, the girl has lost the last 5 years of her memory.  All she can remember is that she is engaged to this rich guy and is going to law school.  She can't remember breaking off the engagement. She can’t remember meeting, falling in love, and marrying her husband.  She can’t remember quitting law school and becoming an artist.  She is very conflicted between the person she thinks she is and the person people say she has become.  To find her bearings, she moves back home with her parents and picks up life where she left off five years before.  Through a series of events, she realizes why she broke off the engagement with her ex-fiance.  She didn’t love him or his lifestyle.   She goes back to law school, but she finds herself being drawn to art.  In the end, she quits law school, becomes an artist, and falls in love with her husband again.  It is a cute love story and very touching, but I think that there is a greater message in this movie.  

Being engaged to a rich, proper, snobbish man and going to law school was not this girl’s true self.  She was an artist.  She loved a real man.  She had discovered that the first time for herself.  And even though her self-discovering experiences were erased, she was able to find herself again.  Why?  She was an artist, not a lawyer.  She truly loved a good, honest, simple, kind man.  Her true self came out again, even after she had lost herself.

It makes me wonder.  If my memories were erased, if I was taken to a different time in my life, would I find my way here again?  Is who I am right now the real me?  Or am I on my first journey to find myself?   Have I found the real me yet?  Is there something out there, pulling me toward it, like art did for the girl in the movie?  I think if I lost my memories,  I would always find my way back to my religious beliefs.  I know there is a God and that He loves me and watches out for me.  That truth would ring true to me, even if I had lost it.   I know I would find my way to Jaron.  I love that man.  As time goes on, I realize what a treasure of gold he is.  I know I would find my way to my children.  My love for them is too deep, too much a part of me.  But I wonder if I would discover other likes and dislikes, maybe ones I don’t even know right now.  What would be different about me if I lived my life again?  What would resurface as being a part of the real me?   Definitely makes me wonder….