COCO Before Chanel: The Movie

I watched this movie this evening.
It was a relaxing end to an Easter Day that was somewhat reflective.
There were many good lines in this movie...

"Love is best in Fairy Tales" was one of them.

Now, that is food for thought,isn't it?

We spend our adult lives looking for the right person. We pursue LOVE, a relationship and judge ourselves according to whether or not we "have" a relationship, and how well it is going.
But this question poses a serious consideration.

Is love,True LOVE, Romantic LOVE , the Perfect LOVE with that, at least, almost perfect person, just a fantasy?
Is it just the fodder of fairy tales?

I had always thought not. But I had been blinded by my own perception of the person(s) I chose to love and to love me.

In fairy tales the end is always the happily ever after, isn't it?

It is not, what another line in this movies proposes.
"What does it feel like to be in love?" is the question, and the answer in this movie and perhaps in all of life is: " Love hurts, hurts, hurts."

Of course we know that the feeling of love produces brain chemistry that makes us feel really good,sometimes euphoric BUT love does hurt doesn't it? Because another person can never ever satisfy all our emotional needs,nor should they be expected to.

But expect them to, we do.

We are NOT perfect but we seek perfection in our lovers, and spouses. We expect them always to know what we are thinking, what we need, and,even, to read our minds.
We voice our disappointment when they do not live up to our perception of what I once read is called the,"GIANT SELF."

If they fib to us in an attempt to make themselves more loved and acceptable to us, we accuse them of lying. But who of us has not at least once or twice exaggerated a story just a tweak to make ourselves look better in someone else's eyes.

None of us is perfect, yet we expect perfection.

I am guilty of all of this.
As a woman I have found myself looking for faults in the seemingly "perfect" partner.

If you look for faults in anything in life but especially in the people closest to you, you will find them.
We are harsh judges.
Why is that? When most of our religions teach us to be compassionate, understanding, merciful? Perhaps it is base human nature.
As it is that in beginning stages of any relationship things seem perfect. Even the most hideous of our habits are charming to our new love. With time and familiarity those very same habits become annoyances.

We are strange creatures,human beings. All of this is because even though we are Spiritual beings, we exist in this time and place in human form.
Human form with all its flaws and imperfections.

As a romantic I still have hope that some day someone will love me even with my faults and flaws. That they will over look my foolish exaggerations, they will forgive that I snort when I laugh heartily, and maybe even that I snore.

In this movie, about the earlier years of Coco Chanel, she is determined to never marry.

Coco Chanel never did marry, though she did, as portrayed in this movie, fall in love.
She considered love somewhat of a foolish emotion. Perhaps she was far wiser then myself.

Foolish as it may be, we crave being loved. We desire to be in unity with GOD and with another human being.

We convince ourselves we don't need it, don't want it, but eventually IT is there.

There is a moment when we make a decision to love.
It is my experience that in that moment when we make a subconscious decision to once again return to the neediness of twelve year old little girls, or fifteen year old little boys, we make a decision to trust.

Trust.
Have you thought about the enormity, the power of that one word and concept ???

Yet at some point,outside of the fairy tale,in real life we walk to that cliff and we feel ourselves falling. In that moment of pure insanity we decide to allow ourselves not just to fall off that cliff. In that moment we decide to jump, and in that moment of deciding to jump we hope with all our Faith and with all our TRUST that we will FLY.

But as a sometimes skeptic, just perhaps the other line in this movie that struck me is more accurate. "The most interesting thing about being in love is making love. Too bad you need a guy to do that."

Now,lesbian relationships, aside,,, and please if you are a man insert the word "woman" for the word "guy" in the above sentence. (I'm sure Coco Chanel would not mind.)
Then tell me... IS love best in fairy tales?

I only wish I could be absolutely sure.
I still pursue the reckless abandon of it.

You will probably one day find me, if you haven't already, standing on the edge of that cliff hoping to fly. Part of my human nature deceives me into believing that, apart from all of you who fail in it, I will soar.
My love will be the happily ever after.
And so the folly of this human dilemma.

I wish you all the exuberant joy of that fabulous fall.
I'm only human, after all.
I say,"Go for it!"

Life is so Good.