a sucker for love & tragedy

Sometimes I wonder what makes me tick. All my favorite movies end with either someone dying or somehow leaving a great love unsatisfied. This bothers Rob, who likes only happy endings. I seem to need a challenge and I don't know why.

In the Mexican film Like Water for Chocolate lovers Tita and Pedro are finally united after years of intense longing, only to combust in their first and final act of passion.

In Atonement lovers Cecilia and Robbie are kept apart as a result of a terrible lie and Robbie is sent off to war. Just when we're convinced they finally found grace in each other's arms, we learn that Robbie actually died in the war. He'd never come home to reunite with Cecilia. The story of their peace was merely fiction dreamed of a penitent heart.

Shakespeare In Love is another one about a secret love affair that is not allowed to be fulfilled. So beautiful was their love and so painful the abrupt end of it.

I was brought to tears just last night reading The Red Tent. Set in biblical times, it depicted the story of Dinah and Shalem. Chapter 7 was so beautifully written, so intense with the description of the budding passion of the two lovers. They were devoted to each other and so blissfully happy in their love. I could feel it in me. I died too when Dinah's brothers murdered Shalem as he lay in bed next to her. It was gruelling and I cried like I haven't in a long time.
Over a book!

So why does all this painful emotion interest me? I dunno. It's a little scary. Basically, I guess it moves me. And I like to be moved...deeply. I can relate to the feeling of intense longing, of hope, of honoring a love bigger than two humans could have created themselves. It is a bit reminiscent of the story of Cam and me. But I'd hate to think that I am idealizing a love that cannot be satisfied. Because I do want to be satisfied.