???

Why am I the only one up at this hour??? What happened to all you crazy college peeps staying up all night, avoiding your homework??? Why is Brandon, an even more extreme night owl than myself, passed out right now, snoring happily??? The internet just makes me lonely. I quit.

Good Grief, Peggy Sue

So, I was watching "Peggy Sue Got Married" on Netflix View Instantly tonight, relaxing for a bit after putting my kiddo down and before playing some SimCity Societies. I remembered liking it from when I was younger and thought I could laugh at Nick Cage's crazy, goofy performance again.

About 23 minutes into the movie I'm all relaxed and enjoying the cheesiness, marveling at the ability of unrealistic cinema to make me nostalgic about a childhood that was not mine. I alternately appreciate and abhor this theme that directors like to use in old, 50's era pieces. Everyone likes to look back on the early twentieth century and make it out to be some sort of Garden of Eden. I am constantly receiving forwards from older generations lauding the simplicity, honesty, and purity of that period. And they are always wishing the characteristics of that time into the modern age.

But it irritates me to no end because it is so, so wrong. I certainly do not long to be living in a time when one of the greatest flaws was a severe lack of equality between all people. We have enough of that now, we don't need to revert back to a time of pronounced inequality for people of color, women, and especially any other variation in religion or sexuality. But, Peggy Sue has warped back in time to her high school days, the always ideally represented 50's, and is alternately confused and excited to see everything the way it used to be. She walks into her house and (I'm anticipating this from watching it previously) finds herself face to face with her mother. And in spite of the hated idealization, I find myself misty over the thought of a non-existent mother, loving and supportive, with whom I could have been overjoyed to see again in the setting of my youth. It made me chuckle at myself, thinking that if I had experienced the same thing as Peggy Sue, I would run screaming the other direction before walking back into my old house during my high school years.

Yet, on walks Peggy, up to her room to peruse all her lost treasures of old. I've dismissed the notion of nostalgia for my own life, promising in the back of my mind to be the mother I never had, when in walks Peggy Sue's sister.

That's the kind of thing that just brick wall's me because it is so unexpected. I find myself with tears streaming down my face as Peggy Sue fawns over a sister with whom she never had a relationship, trying to make up for lost time by playing a board game with her. As an adult, Peggy realizes what she didn't know as a teenager: she really loves her sister and wants to know her better.

Damn it.

I would go back in time. I'd give anything to do it, even brave the hell hole that was my old house, just to see her again and maybe spend some time with her.

More Tomorrow

Terrible, terrible, horrible, awful, horrific, no good, bad, scary, horrible, horrific, depressing fucking day.