Father of the Bride & Leaving - BEDA #6

This movie has been one of my favorites for years. And over the years it has been one of my favorites for different reasons. When I was younger, I loved this movie so much because it made me laugh incessantly and was so true to life. It was a sweet story and the acting was good. I really liked it for those reasons.
But now it's for an entirely different reason. It's because I actually am starting to understand the feelings that are shown in the movie. I understand the pain of the prospect of leaving, but the excitement of a new life.

My favorite movie is Father of the Bride.




I watched this movie just last night. But this time with new eyes. Of course I've recently begun to relate to it more and more as I've gotten older, but last night, as I watched it by myself without the company of others and without feeling weird to reacting to it naturally, I suddenly found myself wanting to cry in so many parts. I realized that I understood how Annie feels as she describes to George that she does want to marry Brian, but she doesn't want to leave home. How she is trying to wrap her mind around the fact that she's leaving.

Although I'm not engaged nor am I even with a year or two of getting married, I somehow comprehended a little bit how she is supposed to feel. I felt a nervousness and excitement in the pit of my stomach and tears started welling up in my eyes as the scene changed to the wedding scene above. I have realized recently that I am getting older. I will be a senior this fall. I'll be in college next year. I expect to finish college early and I hope and pray I get married soon after. And thinking about all of these adventures I'm about to embark on suddenly sets me on edge. It makes me so excited and yet so nervous.

I love my family and I love my home. But I know soon it will be time for me to go to college. To get married. To form my own family. And when I consider these prospects, I start freaking out. At the age of eight, I obviously considered these ideas: oh yeah, I'll go to college one day. Oh yeah, I'll get married one day. Oh yeah, I'll have kids one day. But suddenly, eight years later, I realize these things aren't just fairy tales that live off in the distant land called the future. Suddenly I realize these things are reality. They're coming soon. I hope to be done with college and married within the next five or six years. Five years ago, I was nearly twelve. And twelve seems but just a couple of seconds ago. Which means in just a couple of seconds I'll be out on my own. And that scares me a little.

However, as much as I say I'm scared, I can't forget that feeling of excitement I get in my soul whenever I think about these things. They're scary, sure, but they're exciting as well. They're new promises. They're a new life. Soon I'll be out in the real world. I'll have to deal with the things that my parents have taken care of without me noticing for the past 16 years of my life. Life will be... well... life. But it will be different.

Obviously, I've considered college and marriage. But when I actually think about them, in a realistic sense, like "This is actually going to happen to me," that's when I really start getting excited and nervous. Like I said, at the age of eight, these things were in far of lands. They seemed like they would never reach me. And I was content playing video games and Legos with my brother, writing in my journal about the great injustices that came along with being eight and the huge crushes I had on guys, reading Anne of Green Gables and wishing I was her, scrapbooking and rubber stamping and doing anything and everything my mom did because she automatically made it cool, daydreaming about these things in the back of my mind, never really considering their reality in life. But now I see that they are real. And they really will happen to me. They're not just going to happen to my friends and acquaintances. They're going to happen to me. They'll really happen. And they're not just in movies that I've always loved so much. Like Father of the Bride.

And I guess that is what brings me back to why I love Father of the Bride so much. It is so true to life. Okay, so maybe the superfluous buns and jail part is a little over the top, but in general. -wink- But it really captures the feelings that we as humans have in these huge life experiences. It doesn't over-dramatize the feelings and experiences. It offers true to life stuff. The good and bad. The stress. But the eventual happiness. And I like that. I like that it gives off such an honest feel.
Leaving is part of life.
Leaving is painful.
But leaving also offers good things in exchange.
And despite the nervousness the idea of all of these things bring to me,
it brings me excitement for the promise of good things too.
And I like that.