Reciprocity

My last post I talked about the movie PS I Love You. To be specific, I was really touched by the statement Daniel makes to Holly when he says “I’d like to be somebody’s Gerry.”

That got me thinking about things. I have spent a lot of time here talking about how we the readers are loving our partners. Brainstormed ideas on how we could put more effort into strengthening our relationships. Came up with ways we could do more for them. Taken responsibility for the shortcomings we feel exist. Explored ways we could feel more, love deeper, give more of ourselves.

I realized I haven’t done a very good job of exploring what we may want out of life. I haven’t been selfish enough here for us. I haven’t asked what we want to get out of our relationships. What is in it for us? We want to give more but is it wrong to want to get a little in return?

Daniels single statement changed my thinking on love. In that moment as I watched him say it and I heard the words I knew they hit me hard in a new place. And as I sat here today replaying them over and over and over I had an epiphany. I realized I was only working on half of the puzzle. Not only am I looking for a great love for ME, but I want to be a great love for HER. I know what I wanted FOR me. Now I know what I want FROM me.

Gerry writes a final letter to Holly before he dies. In that letter he is thanking her for their life together. He tells her how much she moved him, and changed him. How she made him a man by loving him. He says “Thank you for the honor of being my wife. I am a man with no regrets. How lucky I am, you made my life.”

Maybe it has been obvious to you but it wasn’t to me. Maybe it goes without saying that in our effort to have a great love we automatically are that for the other person. But having a great love isn’t the same as being a great love. I want to be able to write that letter to the woman I share my life with. But I want her to able to write it too! I want to be the man that moved a woman. That changed her. A man she felt honored to have as her husband. That left her with no regrets. That has her feeling lucky because I made her life. I want to be that.

Not only do I want to be Garrett from Message in a Bottle and be so utterly consumed with a woman’s love, but I want to know what it was like to be Catherine and have someone so utterly consumed by my love. I want to be someone’s everything. I want to have a woman love me so intensely that other men are jealous of me. And ask me how I do it. Long after Gerry was gone Holly couldn’t even imagine spending time with another man. Garrett didn’t even see the women around him because he was so in love with Catherine.

I want that for me. Ya I really do want to be somebody’s Gerry. But I also want be what Holly was to Gerry. What Catherine was to Garrett. I deserve to get as good as I give. Anything less is no longer acceptable.

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