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Sunday, June 24, 2007

Waitress

I went and watched a movie, and I didn't fall asleep. That's a huge accomplishment in and of itself. I often go to movies and just use it as nap time. They are often times very interesting and worthwhile movies, but I just pass out. So... the movie Waitress must have been an exceptional movie, because I stayed awake through the whole thing.

Now... I want to reflect seriously on reasons why I personally thought this movie was one of my all time favorites.

First, I kind of picked this movie to see, because I love Keri Russell from her days on Felicity. I watched Felicity back when I was in college with my mom, then I bought the entire four season collection and watched every episode with my husband. I have never bought a TV series on dvd before, and since then I've bought a couple and have never watched them.

I knew this movie was kind of a dramatic chick flick movie, that it was in the Sundance Film Festival, and that it was about a pregnant waitress. Those were about all the details that I knew about this movie.

Within the first few minutes of this movie starting I thought I was in trouble and was going to quickly fall asleep. Keri Russell had a Southern Accent? No way!!! I am not going to be able to believe this at all. But... as the movie progressed I became mesmerized.

I was quickly drawn to the story line. Jenna (Keri Russell) a waitress is unhappily married to a total jerk named Earl and has found herself pregnant. She recalls the night she became pregnant by saying it was the night Earl got her drunk. She is furious that she is pregnant but is certain that she'll have the baby. Throughout the movie she refers to her baby as damn baby and makes it clear this baby is going to ruin her life even further than it's already ruined. That this baby may even prevent her from being able to leave her abusive husband.

Of course being the person I am... I reflect and try to understand exactly where this woman is coming from, and it hits home HARD. I quickly have flashbacks to my past and my pregnancy at the age of 18 and my emotions are running wild. I am NOT going to fall asleep during this movie.

I'm not going to go into complete detail about my past and my feelings. I am very proud of the person I was then and am now today. I chose some very unusual choices for some very real and painful reasons. But... I really feel that for the most part I am ok with my past and do not look back on it as something I completely regret. I have learned countless lessons from my choices. I have the two most precious children on this Earth, and because of knowing pain and hardships, I am able to greater appreciate the joy and pleasure of what life has to offer now.

Back to waitress... (If you want to watch this movie and don't want to know the ending, you may want to stop reading now.) I kept trying to predict what would happen in this movie. Some of the outcomes were predictable, but the one outcome that flooded me with the most overwhelming emotion and caught me a little off guard was when Jenna gave birth to her baby and the nurse asked her to hold her daughter. I thought for a second that Jenna was going to say "I don't want to hold her right now." That she may feel overwhelmed by the hardship of the delivery and feel that this baby was the cause of all this physical pain. But... instead she took the baby girl in her arms and was overcome with the most overwhelming feeling of LOVE she's ever felt in her life.

Open the flood gates!!! I am sobbing now as I write this. Words can't explain how that encompasses how I felt at the birth of my baby girl. To make it even more dramatic, Jenna decides to name her baby girl LuLu. My daughter's middle name is Luisa, and I often called her LuLu when she was a toddler.

If there ever be a doubt about whether I love my babies and whether they were meant to be, may that doubt be obliterated in the twinkling of an eye.

http://www.foxsearchlight.com/waitress/

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