Foolish things

Weird, wonderful world sometimes, I suppose, where you can be most proud of the most foolish things you've done.
Tonight on TV, I watched "Love Actually", a real feel-good, gurly movie if there ever was one.
When I was in the hospital, chafing from head to toe from plastic sheets, stuck flat on my back with a bunch of tubes out one side that drained all the nutrients out of me, drifting in and out of consciousness, I wanted parts of "Love Actually" on the hospital movie channel. All I could do was catch a little bit, then I'd pass out. An unknown time later, I'd see the next part, or part of the same segment, then pass out again.

"Here we go, dad. Let's get our ass kicked for love," one kid says. That's just what I did.

Here was me, the guy who really loved the Rambo flicks, and thought Schwarzenneger was the only person who could ever play Conan, just couldn't get enough of this damned movie.

One after another, all the men in the movie found their true love. In the hospital, I thought I had, too.
They'd cut my throat, right across the jugular, to take out a sieve that prevented blood clots from killing me while they ripped my leg from my hip, then screwed a couple of chunks of titanium into me. -- I can literally say I had to come to Australia to get my throat cut.

Two years of Hell. Fear so deep it made me unwilling to open my eyes to each day. The daily insults, cruel sarcasm, and bitter words that still rip through my mind from her and her family. And now, with that surgery, I had hope. I'd come out of all this crap and make a life for myself. -- Or so I told myself for nearly a month.

From those feelings I drew Hope, and that Hope made me deal with the pain and uncertainty.

I found the strength to stand one day because I wanted to take a shower. It surprised the nurses. Hell, it surprised me even though I didn't make much of it at the time.

But ... real life isn't a movie. It just wasn't going to be. While I was in there making one last stand before walking again, the supposed love of my life was out conspiring with others to throw me away. Who knows? Maybe she was off with some new boyfriend she found on Adult Friend Finder.

In the strange magic of real life though, I'm proud of my silly feelings. Now, after enduring all the deceits, the miserable prejudices I had to face from so many, I'm proud of my silly feelings, even if they were foolish.
Because my feelings were not false. What she has or hasn't, I'll never know. All I have is a happy pride that I can't even explain to myself.
It's a beautiful movie. And maybe, still, love does conquer all -- even if it's not returned.