The Second Chapter

Don Jon- June 13, 2019

For some reason tonight, I decided watching Twilight was a great idea. And not just any movie from the Twilight series, but New Moon, the second movie when Edward leaves Bella.

I thought that at some point I'd be overcome with some intense emotions. That when the scene of him leaving came, I'd want to curl in on myself in a similar fashion to Bella and wish away the hurt. But it never came.

When Edward first walked up to Bella, it was so casual that she smiled at the sight of him and I flashed back to the first night, when the sight of you walking through my cabin doors made me smile from ear to ear. When grabbing your hand on the walk to my inevitable doom was instinctual and not an urge I had to consciously resist.

I laughed at the face he made as he told her he didn't want her anymore- it reminded me of yours. And Bella's must have been a perfect reenactment of my own reaction...or would mine have been a reenactment of hers because this movie came out before we broke up?

Having watched it at your house only a month ago completely fucked me over though, because as I watched and certain scenes came on, I flashed back to being wrapped in your covers, snuggled against your chest. One scene oddly reminded me of chocolate oranges and I felt confused until I remembered that when I had watched that scene at your house, I was in the middle of devouring the chocolate orange I'd had stashed away on your desk.

Truth be told, I hardly paid attention to the movie itself. My mind wandered aimlessly the whole time, stopping at odd intervals to remind me of different memories of you, as if it was a child meandering on the side of the road, only stopping every once in a while to offer me a flower they had just plucked from the ground. At one point, I got an intense craving for chocolate cake and whispered to myself that I wanted some, half expecting you to laugh and offer to find me some tomorrow. At another point, I found myself heaping a paper plate full of pizza, chips, salsa and ice cream, grinning the whole time as I thought about how proud and impressed you'd be at the sheer quantity of food I was going to eat- which, of course, I didn't end up eating because the thought of not being able to tell you how much I ate, the thought of not talking to you at all really, made me lose my appetite. Later, I found myself cuddled on the couch, my mind reminiscing on the time I fell asleep on you after I promised I wouldn't as we had watched Black Panther. I turned my head to where you should have been and the adoring smile on your face when you woke me up at the end resurfaced in my mind as brilliantly as if I was looking at it in person again.

When the movie finally came to a close, my mom hesitantly looked over to me and admitted she was scared to let me sleep alone. I stood up and admitted that it was nice to relate to someone else's pain, but that just because I had indulged myself in watching this movie for the thousandth time did not make me any more sad than I already was. It did not make me believe that suddenly one day you would wake up, back to loving me 100% of the way.

Opposed to what you may believe, I am not like the girls they described in Don Jon. I do love a good romance movie, you know that, but I am too much of a realist to assume that those ending are real. I would love to blindly accept the end of Twilight as my own fate- with us together, married, and happy despite your leaving me at one point. But I know that even if we do achieve that, there's much work to be had between now and then.

My believe that we are not over does not stem from a blind faith in romantic comedies or romance novels. My belief originates from knowing that we overcame nearly 6 months of living 3,777 miles apart and still managed to be in a beautiful, healthy, functioning relationship. My faith is not blind and neither am I, despite my love for soppy romance. I believe in us because I know us and I know we can do this.

Although one of the main messages I remember you talking about from Don Jon was that women over fictionalize relationships, the main theme I found was that men expect women to expect the perfect story book romance, and change their behavior to mimic what they've watched men do in the same movies women love. They alter who they are to get the girl of their dreams and in doing so, lose themselves. Lose the spark. Because it's no longer them in the relationship- it's an actor role playing what they feel their girlfriend wants to see.

I do not believe works out the way it's depicted in block buster romance movies.

I am not like the women in Don Jon.

So don't change who you are or how you love me to please me, just because it's what you think I want.

Don't be like Don Jon.