Spring Fling

Coffee shop after 500 Days of Summer, originally uploaded by Margeeboo.

Spring Fling

I shall start by saying that this is a review of "(500) Days of Summer" and an essay of my life. It’s weird when you realize that a work of fiction, such as a movie, can mirror most details in your life. In my case, how "(500) Days of Summer" made me look at my life, or the way I handle a relationship for that matter, and made me realize how you're just a torn up person living on earth.

To anyone who has seen the movie, I know we'll understand each other. To those who haven't, I am sorry for any spoilers. Good luck in reading this.

I am Summer. I am Summer for the simple fact that everything about her when she was in a relationship with Tom... damn she was awful! And I would think I was awful as well. You wouldn't think that a girl would be as awfully awkward about love and relationship. You wouldn't think that a girl would be afraid of the word love and not be in love with love. But Summer was, and she was afraid to fall in love, and most of all she was afraid to commit. If I watched Katherine Heigl in "The Ugly Truth", I wouldn't relate to her character as much as I got to relate to Summer. I haven't seen the movie (and would still want to watch it), but Katherine Heigl's character for sure is a girl who was all too giggly with being in a relationship with a guy she has so dreamt of having. Summer, on the other hand, had someone who loved her so much from day one, and she let him slip away. She let him get in the illusion of having a girlfriend when all along she was not looking for anything but a guy to be with and do the fun stuff. Or really, I wasn't sure what she was looking for.

Tom, on the other hand, loved to love. She was his sun, moon, and stars. He felt so in love with her that even though she said from the start that she was not ready to get into a serious relationship, he swallowed his pride and went with it. He was so in love that he was maybe hoping he could change her, but in the end, it didn't work that way. Boy meets girl, boy learns to love girl, and girl likes the idea of being liked. But then girl breaks his heart into a million pieces for reasons we don’t know. Really, the movie did not expound on that aspect. As I say, it just happens.

But towards the end, Summer finds a guy that she gets to settle with. As much as it seems brutal for the audience to find out that Tom’s heart has been broken, Summer’s decision made sense… to me at least. She settles down for a guy she met at a coffee shop, who was there at the right place at the right time and maybe asked the right question. She did believe in love and found love, but not with Tom, and he was someone who took the risk of asking her if she was ready to settle down, and to his delight I guess, she was up for the challenge of a new life, of settling down, and sad as it may seem, it wasn’t with Tom.

Not all Summer’s are awful beings. To Summer’s defense, she just didn’t find the right person in Tom. It may not be about the right place at the right time, it might be all about the right person. I am a dude, as so defined in the movie, not ready to commit or anything like that, but like Summer (and a little bit of Tom), once I find that right person, I know he is the one. Relationships are all about risk also, risking to be loved and be loved back, to commit and to share your heart, to settle down and spend the rest of your life together. Ahhh… fairy tales.