Monday, February 28, 2011

Batman and She's Electric

I'm about to turn 36 years old.  Ive been through alot in my life.  I've seen it all.  There are no more suprises.  Relationships are all the same and I've been it all so many times before.  Its the Batman backstory basically.  They can reboot the franchise as many times as they want, different actors (West,Keaton, Kilmer, Clooney, Bale), different mediums (TV, Comics, Movies, Video Games), different styles, or timelines....the story is always the same.  His parents are always gunned down, he always takes it upon himself to clean up the streets of Gotham to protect others, he always presses on because of the memory of his parents and his desire to atone for not being able to save them that day. 

In the same way, relationships are always the same.  There is the start...the intensity, the cracks developing usually about the same things over and over (money, intimacy, insecurity) the same conversations happen over and over almost word for word with only the names changing...the conversations being subtle and laid back at first, and then growing in intensity over the weeks or months as somehow we are shocked that the necessary changes arent being made....really?  do we need to be shocked.  Relationships follow a script.  The players dont matter, but the parents always get gunned down.....

Nothing is suprising anymore, it is always the same.  Maybe it is an occupational hazard, I have always known how these things will play out....

This weekend i was having a conversation with my girlfriend of a month....and it was about a topic that I had discussed before.  I said the same things I always said every time i have had this conversation before...that it is ok, that it really doesnt bother me that much, that they should have control so I dont feel bad, seriously, if you played past conversations at the same time, probably the only difference would be the names.  This isnt an indication in any way of my feelings for this woman, they are significantly different than any i have ever experienced...but i guess it was bound to end up at the same place...the same conversations.  the parents getting gunned down, the suit, the crimefighting, the Batman....

Halfway through my script though, something happened......i didnt need to say the script.  This was different,  I didnt have to feel the way I had in the past.  I had a new strength....one given to me by this wonderful woman, not only in the things she says to me, but the things she does.....so I corrected myself...i started back over, but when down a different road this time.....I wouldnt stop being "me", i realized i was actually ok..and that by being me..sure sometimes there might be some speedbumps...but that she wouldnt want me any other way.....and that any bumps werent malicious, but instead just us making it through....

She was different, this was different....this time the Waynes survived..Bruce grew up with his parents alive...never needed to don the suit..never needed to live a tortured existance....I had seen it all and become jaded as a result....but maybe i didnt know it all, maybe there was something new out there I hadnt experienced before...Love.

That hit me this morning....and it is such an exciting day because of it.  Imagine being at the Newport Folk Festival in 65....Bob Dylan has been your Folk hero for years...you know when he takes the stage what to expect.....Mr. Tambourine Man, Blowin in the Wind, Times they are a Changin.....you are comfortable with this Dylan...he is consistant, you know when you will sing along, when you will listen...then he walks out....with an Electric Guitar and your world gets turned upside down....

All of a sudden what you thought you knew, what you believed would always happen is gone.  You dont know what these songs will sound like...will it be the same...will it be better?  You dont know what the opening song will be...what the closer...the encore.  You dont know if the one thing that was a constant in your life, even if it was sad...what this new direction will sound like.  But you cant wait to find out...cause maybe its the way it was always meant to be.