Happily Ever After

If my life were a movie, it would most certainly be a chick flick. For me, it’s always been mostly about romance, the main topic of all my diaries. I love to work and create, and many things bring me pride and joy, I want and need family and friends in my life, but nothing is as important to me as romantic love. And even though it was always so important for me, I was so bad at it that when I came to TierraMitica -now over eleven years ago- I no longer wanted a relationship, because I felt I just sucked at it too much. Which, honestly, I did. I always ended up creating a mess and hurting people. I’ve felt really bad about this in the past, but now I can say I feel grateful for every single story I’ve lived, no matter how dramatic. Because every story was in integral part of my story, a story that reached happily ever after a while ago, and yet it has far from ended.

Deep down, underneath all the bullshit and the cynicism, I’ve always wanted my life to be a fairy tale. And most of all, to live happily ever after. But I did not have a single clue about what that meant. What IS happily ever after? Truly? What happens AFTER the fairy tale ends? Is it just the end? Have babies and grow old and become irrelevant, no longer interesting to write about? That is what I thought. And so I was in paradox about it: I wanted my own happily ever after, but I also did not want it, because then it would be "The End".

Having grown a relationship for over ten years now into a “soulmateship” that keeps becoming closer and more loving and more passionate as time goes by, I can happily say: Happily ever after is just the beginning. The beginning of a new adventure with two players playing as a team, instead of one single player playing the game of life on their own. And there is nothing that can beat that feeling of being one with another human being, it is close to divinity as we can get.

Benji asked me a few days ago what my favorite movie was, and I almost didn’t dare to say it, because it is so incredibly uncool: Titanic.  Since I was 12 and I first saw it, this has been my favorite movie. I answered: “I would have said Titanic when I was younger, but now I don’t know, I’ll think about it”. Which was true, I didn’t lie, I didn’t know and I had to think. I just felt it could not possibly be Titanic. I mean, come on, I am not an adolescent anymore… But then again, just like I am still that same little girl inside, I am still that same adolescent. I just love that movie. I will never forget how I felt when I first saw it in the movie theater in Roeselare. My heart was exploding for hours on end, feeling Rose and her lust for life. How she wanted to “spit like a man” and "ride a horse like a man", and how much I just adored the passion, the excitement, the connection, the trust, the daring and the uncharacteristic choices that changed Rose’s life. Titanic did not become such a box office hit because of the special effects or the dramatic sinking scenes, but because of the story of the transformation of Rose, in my opinion.

Their love story, even though Jack died, has a happy ending. Her heart lives on and she learns how to ride a horse like a man.

I was always convinced Jack did not have to die. The movie would not have been any less interesting, on the contrary, it would be a positive thing among all the drama. But James Cameron chose to let him die. He gave many reasons for this over the years, but one thing he mentioned shocked me: "It's like Romeo and Juliet. It's a movie about love and sacrifice and mortality. The love is measured by the sacrifice."

The love is measured by the sacrifice? I do not agree. Jack had already saved Rose, he did not have to die for her. The dramatic ending is not the reason why the story became so successful, Rose’s transformation is, and Jack was her prince on the white horse who gave her a new chance at life. From having been suicidal, given up on life, she went on to blow that little whistle for dear life to bring the life boat back. Jack gave her that power. He saved her by how he lived, not by how he died, that was totally unnecessary.

In my version, Jack lived, against all odds. Maybe it would have made a less popular movie, but it would be the kind of movie I would want to live. And it as it happens, it is exactly the story I am living. My Jack survived against all odds, and we get to be living our happily ever after together, unlike Jack and Rose.

In a little over a month from now we will be celebrating our 10 year anniversary on the same day of our common birthday, and in these 10 years, we lived so many more adventures, and grew so much closer than I ever thought two people could get. And along the way I learned what it means to really love somebody, what it means to trust, what it means to have an ally and what it means to be an ally. I’ve become so inspired I get lost in inspiration. And it just keeps getting better! 

As Sandra Bullock said in “While you were Sleeping” (Another one of my favorites), I agree that “I guess you might say he gave me the world”. What is happily ever after? It’s the part in the story where you and me changes into we. To be continued!