Make Believe vs, Real Life

The older I get and the more I experience in this life, the wiser I grow and the more I see things through different eyes.
Let me explain my most recent realization of this.

As I have mentioned here, I am a recipient of o mail-order video rental and have added a few of the 'oldies' to my list. For two main reasons:

1. Either I have 'always wanted to see it' and never did, or else I HAVE seen it, maybe more than once, and loved it so much I want to see it once more.

2. The other reason is that I love sharing my favorites and potential favorites with my kids.

The latest rental was a movie I saw for the first and only time as a young adolescent, I believe I watched it with my mother who is about to celebrate her 45th wedding anniversary in less than a year. There is a point to all of this stay with me.

The movie of the week, was Kramer vs. Kramer. an award winning movie with award winning actors starring in it. I cannot get enough of Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep?! Has she ever HAD a bad role? srsly.

The first time I watched the movie, I was not married, let alone lived through a divorce, and certainly never thought about having kids of my own.

But this past weekend, watching it for the second time, I am not only a parent, but a single parent. And not only a single parent but a woman who has been through a rather tough divorce, and a custody battle in its own rights.

Unlike the custody battle in the movie which just brings tears to my eyes, my battle was more a battle to get their father to see his kids.
In the movie, Dustin's character starts out as a father who is disconnected from his wife and child, busy at work but also seems more comfortable staying at work with fellow office comrades than being at home playing the husband/father.
Meryl's character is overwhelmed with a sort of single parenting while he is working late every night and then staying late to catch up with friends.
This I can relate to very much. There really is such thing as a married single parent in my opinion.
Later in the movie, they seem to take a walk in each others shoes. However without completely spelling out the storyline here, lets just say he becomes the dad he should have been all along and then they both end up fighting nastily for their child full-time. Until the ending....

When I first told my girls that this movie was so old, that I was younger than they are when it came out, they didn't seem too interested. They were busy on face book or finding a snack. But the longer it played, they were drawn in.

It is crazy how you see it all differently when you have felt that pain. And lord knows we have.
But there was also a hope in the story, that kids do make it through just fine. And that sometimes, dads who don't make very good dads, surprise us.
Of course we are still waiting for the father of my children to be their father. To be more than a guest at their graduations, or weddings. To feel more like a parent than a long lost uncle.

But, I am glad we rented this movie. we laughed at the hairstyles and seventies bell-bottoms. We cried when they fought in court and when his son seems to be the most adult of all of them.
By the way, points for the cute kid.
Move over Jerry McGuire!
I must have really been on a Meryl Kick- From Sophie's Choice, then Mama Mia, and now Kramer vs, Kramer. All great acting and writing.

Next on the rental queue: Places in the heart- Another movie rerun. Sally Field is one of my favorite actresses of all time. I want to meet her.