😂 You are most definitely welcome! Have you seen anything lately that left you feeling good about how you spent that hour and a half of your life? I'd love a good recommendation. 🙏
I preloaded enough dislike that I've opted out of watching it altogether.
But that's par for the romcom course in my life. I'm tired of letting pop culture influnce my perception of what romance "should be".... I tried it. It didn't work (in my limited but keenly felt experience).
I'd rather watch mindless physical violence than insidious emotional violence. I'd rather watch nature documentaries even more, because: pretty.
"Preloaded enough dislike" that cracked me up. You have a point, there is very little in pop culture romance movies that appeals to me these days. Perhaps it's time to stop wishing they were something better -- that they were never meant to be in the first place. For some reason though, it just seemed like this one had the change to do something, to say something and it did the opposite.
Ughhh YES to all of this. I have been waiting for someone to discuss this movie with who would see it more than just a “cute drama romance with a hot cast”. It annoyed me to no end. I felt it while I watched it and I continued feeling it for days after I finished it. Nothing new or noteworthy here in terms of how sex is depicted, but the scene where she went to visit him in New York and it’s the first time they’re really together. Her having an orgasm in three and a half seconds made me actually yell at the tv in rage…maybe that’s my own trauma though. Who knows! It doesn’t annoy me to see women experiencing pleasure (I love it!) but something about that scene seen made me feel like it was suggested that she was NOTHING sexually until she was with him. I can appreciate that certain people and energies pull out different parts of us sexually, and it’s something I write about myself, but I think they did a horrible job at depicting that process in the film. I can’t speak to the book because I haven’t read it but im curious to see if there was more depth to that process in the book.
ohmygosh! I'm soooo glad you shared your thoughts on this! I am STILL thinking about this movie and every time I see it on the menu when I go to amazon it makes me a little big angry-annoyed. I love that you brought up the hotel sex scene. I didn't like it either, it didn't ring true for me at all and I wasn't sure why until your observation. There was also something strong and powerful and resolute about her as she walks into the hotel and into his room and otherwise in the rest of the movie she is so malleable and unable to assert her own desires or needs or value as a partner. It's almost like they made it so that he was so desirable to her, that she was helpless around him. Which, I think is what you're saying.
It also continues to bother me that they brought up the issue of patriarchy and sexism and feminism/antifeminism and then just decided not to have the conversation. Even just a short dialogue between the AH character and her daughter, discussing the unfair stigma of women dating younger men. Ugh. I could go on and on. I wonder about the book too, I read that the author wasn't involved in the movie at all.
Wow. Yes so much to all of this. YEs. You articulated exactly what I couldn’t find the words for. Her walking into the hotel room with that incredible air of confidence as if she’s very proudly taken the “bull” of feminine pleasure by the horns was immediately contrasted by her, as you said, inability throughout the rest of the movie to assert her own needs. It’s like so stark it’s as if they wanted us to be pissed off about it!!
And YES to everything about how patriarchy was handled in this movie (or not handled!). At the risk of using such an overtly simplified term to describe it, it’s like it was some sort of virtue signaling. A “hey we care about female pleasure and empowerment so we will assert that as a narrative in the film but we won’t actually genuinely, authentically, realistically depict the female experience”. And let’s be honest, it doesn’t get much more patriarchal than that. And UGH you just made me so mad about their inability to show a dialogue between mother and daughter on these subjects. Like demonstrating for your daughter that fulfillment and pleasure aren’t important and you should just put it in the background of your life?!? Like that does anything for healing generational trauma in the maternal line. Oh boy. Tuesday morning and you got me riled! 🫠
YESSSS!! Oh my gosh I'm all riled up again too lol. "Like demonstrating for your daughter that fulfillment and pleasure aren’t important and you should just put it in the background of your life?!? Like that does anything for healing generational trauma in the maternal line. " That's exactly it! That, above all else is what makes me so so angry about this movie - and you nailed it, the virtue/feminism signaling -that's exactly what's happening. Ugh. There are just so many moments in this movie where they bring up the issue, but then the way they deal with it is entirely through the male lens: women being over emotional, women being catty to each other, women needing to be in their place and then all the mom does is model how to not set boundaries and how to not stand up for yourself. "Like demonstrating for your daughter that fulfillment and pleasure aren’t important and you should just put it in the background of your life?!?" and that bullying is okay - you should just run away and stop being who you are and not say anything to anyone about it. You should just make yourself small. Arrrggggg! We've got each other going now! :)
COMPLETELY THIS. All dealt with through the male lens. And the more films that are made this way the more hazy and unclear the path ahead for most women becomes. I mean even in the title of your post which I’m very much paraphrasing from memory but essentially says “DID ANYONE ELSE FEEL PISSED OFF AT THIS FILM?!” Like you noticed something “subtle” that isn’t actually subtle at all (at least to us!) but we have become so primed to it in our society that it very much isn’t felt in a super conscious way. And actually I should not even loop myself in as an “us” here because I couldn’t even articulate to my friends and partner what pissed me off so much about it until you brought it up! It kinda feels like the film “greenwashed” the feminine experience lol. And the majority of people don’t even realize they’re being conned. Ok i will stop now, for fear of inducing more riling lol, (because I suppose that’s just distracting from just going out there and living full honest authentic true empowered lives) but thank you for talking about this. I TRULY believe that by calling a spade and spade like you did so starkly, we can bring all of this out of the shadows. Or rather, continue the push and pull from the shadows that women have been doing for so. many. eons.
Yes! The word subtle came to my mind, but I couldn't figure out how to say what I meant by it and you just did! Ha! yes, greenwashing the female experience. That's just it. I love this so much "Ok i will stop now, for fear of inducing more riling lol, (because I suppose that’s just distracting from just going out there and living full honest authentic true empowered lives)" Because that's really the only thing we can do, isn't it? Rant at injustices, and then live with as much authenticity as we can. So. Many. Eons. Push and pull. I have come to think that's just what it's about here. Learning to find love and beauty and truth amidst that constant tide. I am so so so delighted you took the time to have this conversation! I really really wanted to talk about this movie and you've helped me process it and maybe I can move on now. 😂🙏
Right back at you!! Thank you for starting this convo and also for helping me process. Truly. Love and beauty amidst the constant tide. I love this. A mantra I will keep near and dear 🌊🌊
Sound advice, Sandra (or is it Sandra Ann?) ! I really didn't know it would be so bad. I went in blind, but probably should have known better. I've now got some good books from the library. We have a date for a bath and bed after I finish editing a client's website. 😉🙏
Tomayto, tomahto as far as my name is concerned. I love that you can read and work while sick. I just want to curl up in a ball and watch/sleep through true crime. The Murdaugh Murders on Netflix being a good 5 hour binge/nap. xo
Okay on tomaytos and tomahtos. The mom of my best friend used to call them tomahtos and I just loved her for that. ;) I good 5 hour bingenap sounds fabulous actually. And well, I think you can see that I am not always able to work and read based on my poor entertainment decisions while sick and and convalescing. 😂❤️
We all make mistakes. I usually judge a film by who's in it...and who's not. And you can't really go wrong with an old black-and-white. Give me a Humphrey Bogart flick or something Bette Davis (All About Eve forever!), something Carey Grant and everything Hitchcock (BW or full color), or all things noir. Then again, Prime Suspect with Helen Mirren is another good binge/nap. xo
And thank you for the well wishes! As Sandra Ann Miller pointed out above, a diet of bad movies is maybe not the best medicine lol. Feeling better today tho! xo
I watched this movie ... The part that was the most interesting to me was the pool scene, with the two young girls in their tiny bikinis and the way AH seemed to feel about it. This was the most interesting part of the movie because, in 1994 I met the man who has now been my husband for 29 years and he is 26 years younger than me. When we went to weddings of his friends, I was the age of the parents, not the bride and groom! I would often feel out of place and embarrassed, but All of his friends treated me kindly and honorably. It was only me who felt these things. No one else said them to me. The thing I really disliked the most about this movie, was the number of times that ah said. Said I'm sorry! At each one of those places in the script, they're really needed to be a deep dive into what she was. Sorry about. And why she was sorry! Why was she the? Sorry one, that's the part that bothered me the most. I'm so glad you brought this up. Jocelyn, I really wanted to talk to someone about this too!
Hi Dawn! I'm sorry I'm just seeing this now! hahah. Sorry because I left you hanging in a conversation I started. ;) I didn't notice the "i'm sorrys" in the movie, but i FELT them. Like she was just cowering in herself. ugh. That pool scene just bothered me on so so so many levels. Why were the young women scripted to be so silly and mean - I don't think most young women in real life are like that. Why didn't they give AH's character any confidence, even just one moment to stand up for herself. There were about 15 opportunities during that pool sequence. Sigh.
I LOVE your love story! How fabulous. It's so interesting that you felt the age difference but went ahead and fell in love anyway. How do you think doing that, falling in love regardless of age, how has that's changed you or how you show up in your relationship? If at all? I'd love to know!
Hi J! I lost the thread of our convo as well, so sorry to be tuned out for so long! But yes, I feel the idea of different ages of a romantic couple is a pretty big taboo in our culture ... in most cultures, right? I see so many women writing about their kids graduating from HS now, and I begin to see "yes, that happened to me around age 50-60 too," and I see how our lives are all on a relevant track -- like each of us is in a small car lurching about in a long, long train -- we just follow whatever the others/the culture is asking of us, without questioning or even realizing it. When I was at those weddings of my partner's friends years ago, it was another relevant track (we're getting married!), but I stayed in hiding. I thought someone would say, "why are you here with our friend? You're 26 years too old for him! You are our parents' ages!" but no one did that. So I stayed hidden. Quiet. Some women would pat me on the back, saying, "good job getting the young one!" but mostly, I just fell in love with him (whatever THAT is!!) and he fell in love with me, and we just pushed thru all the fear about "being the 'wrong' ages" -- and we're still doing it, still pushing thru. I remember small things about just meeting him at work, and how we just seemed to connect with each other. It did feel magical. I just had a 79th birthday (we met when I was just turning 50), and while I do feel all those years on my heart and soul, I don't look that age exactly ... and so on we go, plummeting thru the years. I do hospice work, and I was with a lovely lady over the weekend who is near the end of her life, and I saw my own life reflecting between us as we chatted -- all these emotions of life, all the attempts we make at loving ourselves just as we are, and loving others no matter what. My relationship with my husband is like a bright light to me, it isn't always perfect and wonderful, but we are always willing to talk things out with each other, and that loyalty to the root of our love really nurtures it when times are rough. Keep writing J! You are doing great with your Substack!! I have fallen off the regularity of it, but I enjoy following along with others like you dear heart! xxoo
I love this extended conversation we're having here. ❤️This is so beautiful, "and so on we go, plummeting thru the years" And I could copy the entire last third it just melted my heart. My husband and I are the same. It's not perfect, but we are committed to showing up with all the emotions and just letting each other be human. It's such a relief to be in a relationship where we have a common healing language and can really be open about what's happening internally for us. And I just adore him. We met and moved in within few days and were married within six months. It sounds crazy, but we both just knew that we could do something special with and for each other if we really opened our hearts.
Can I ask you about your hospice work? In the last few years I have been drawn to it, but don't really know anything about it. Just that I've had a couple of experiences with death that were so beautiful - I could feel the love that was waiting for the dying person and it was like a chorus, but like one I've never heard before. And I want to somehow be a part of that process. We have so little beautiful rituals around dying in our culture. I have been a reiki practitioner for some time and it seems like reiki and hospice might go together well. I'd like to do something with people and away from the computer for the next phase of my life and some type of healing is calling me. How long have you been doing hospice? What is it like for you? How did you find your way there? These are maybe big questions, so please don't answer if it doesn't feel joyous. ;) xoxoxo I am so so happy to have found you here my sweet friend. And thank you for the encouragement on Substack! ❤️🙏🌈
I'll be back! I have some chores to do, but I'll return to our subject! How wonderful that you feel drawn to hospice care as well. One of the patients I am seeing right now is so adorable, I've thought that we would have been best friends if we'd known each other earlier in our lives!
I really wanted to like this movie and I think they could’ve done so much better. As a mom, I felt the struggle of putting my kids first and letting their happiness reign supreme over my own. Her daughter was FOR the relationship until it affected her own life. Wouldn’t that be a great time to set an example and show that moms shouldn’t have to put off happiness for FIVE YEARS until the daughter is tucked securely at college?! So many opportunities were missed for her to shatter the “men can date younger women, but when women do it, it’s weird or frowned upon” myth. And here we are again allowing ourselves to feel small so others can be ok. NOPE.
When I find someone who brings joy and happiness in my life, who aligns with what I need, I’m grabbing them. The kids will have to understand and be happy for me.
I was just sooooo frustrated when the girls were sitting around the pool and Solene, tosses her bikini out and puts on a one piece and then COVERS IT UP with a house-sized caftan. Ugh the older-body shaming and let's be clear that AH does not have an older-woman's body. And then how the young women are so caddy and how Solene just shrinks away inside her mumu and doesn't model for them how they could love themselves at the ripe old age of 40. Or how young women could look up to a successful slightly older woman. (Also, she's only freaking 40 - that's another thing all together.) And then the thing with her daughter. Why didn't she stand up for herself AND her daughter (isn't that how we put them first) and SAY something about the bullying? WTF. And then to just show her daughter that it's better to let people shame you into not doing something than it is to believe in yourself? I just couldn't even.
Thank you! I am feeling a bit better today. And it's not like I can recommend it lol, but I am soooo curious if you do watch it, to hear what you think! Please come back and tell me. It's streaming on Amazon now fyi. 😉❤️
So I just made my husband watch this film with me and I’m all about rom coms and their cute yet (sometimes) unrealistic premise but I did totally see your point. It did all seem a little ridiculous with the narrative’s double standards — the father able to move on with a 20-something but the mother isn’t able to enjoy her life with a fellow consenting adult. I don’t have children yet alone teenagers but would they really shame a teen daughter for who her mother dates? 🤷🏻♀️🙈 Anyway, I found it mostly entertaining (of course, amazing clothes, visuals, scenery) but also problematic. Hope you’re fully recovered now and if you’re UK based like me enjoying our rare sun sightings. 🤣
I also love a good rom com because of the predictability, which is why I was surprised that this one bothered me so much. Fever induced annoyance perhaps? lol. I think normally, I go into a rom com expecting formula, but something about the _potential_ of this one to tell a different story, that would still have been a love story just grated on me. I'm so glad you watched and shared your thoughts with me. I too loved the clothes and the scenery and of course the pretty people. Visually, it was delightful! I am in Austin, TX of all places, but it's been unusually rainy and grey here and I AM enjoying a lovely sunny day (even spending some time by the pool) today! xo
The sun was so good, I hope it comes out for you soon! It really does make a difference in my mood. And yes, the end was sweet and I just kept thinking that she didn't have to just wait.
I have not seen it, and any intrige I may have had is dissipated. Thank you?
😂 You are most definitely welcome! Have you seen anything lately that left you feeling good about how you spent that hour and a half of your life? I'd love a good recommendation. 🙏
I preloaded enough dislike that I've opted out of watching it altogether.
But that's par for the romcom course in my life. I'm tired of letting pop culture influnce my perception of what romance "should be".... I tried it. It didn't work (in my limited but keenly felt experience).
I'd rather watch mindless physical violence than insidious emotional violence. I'd rather watch nature documentaries even more, because: pretty.
"Preloaded enough dislike" that cracked me up. You have a point, there is very little in pop culture romance movies that appeals to me these days. Perhaps it's time to stop wishing they were something better -- that they were never meant to be in the first place. For some reason though, it just seemed like this one had the change to do something, to say something and it did the opposite.
Ughhh YES to all of this. I have been waiting for someone to discuss this movie with who would see it more than just a “cute drama romance with a hot cast”. It annoyed me to no end. I felt it while I watched it and I continued feeling it for days after I finished it. Nothing new or noteworthy here in terms of how sex is depicted, but the scene where she went to visit him in New York and it’s the first time they’re really together. Her having an orgasm in three and a half seconds made me actually yell at the tv in rage…maybe that’s my own trauma though. Who knows! It doesn’t annoy me to see women experiencing pleasure (I love it!) but something about that scene seen made me feel like it was suggested that she was NOTHING sexually until she was with him. I can appreciate that certain people and energies pull out different parts of us sexually, and it’s something I write about myself, but I think they did a horrible job at depicting that process in the film. I can’t speak to the book because I haven’t read it but im curious to see if there was more depth to that process in the book.
ohmygosh! I'm soooo glad you shared your thoughts on this! I am STILL thinking about this movie and every time I see it on the menu when I go to amazon it makes me a little big angry-annoyed. I love that you brought up the hotel sex scene. I didn't like it either, it didn't ring true for me at all and I wasn't sure why until your observation. There was also something strong and powerful and resolute about her as she walks into the hotel and into his room and otherwise in the rest of the movie she is so malleable and unable to assert her own desires or needs or value as a partner. It's almost like they made it so that he was so desirable to her, that she was helpless around him. Which, I think is what you're saying.
It also continues to bother me that they brought up the issue of patriarchy and sexism and feminism/antifeminism and then just decided not to have the conversation. Even just a short dialogue between the AH character and her daughter, discussing the unfair stigma of women dating younger men. Ugh. I could go on and on. I wonder about the book too, I read that the author wasn't involved in the movie at all.
Wow. Yes so much to all of this. YEs. You articulated exactly what I couldn’t find the words for. Her walking into the hotel room with that incredible air of confidence as if she’s very proudly taken the “bull” of feminine pleasure by the horns was immediately contrasted by her, as you said, inability throughout the rest of the movie to assert her own needs. It’s like so stark it’s as if they wanted us to be pissed off about it!!
And YES to everything about how patriarchy was handled in this movie (or not handled!). At the risk of using such an overtly simplified term to describe it, it’s like it was some sort of virtue signaling. A “hey we care about female pleasure and empowerment so we will assert that as a narrative in the film but we won’t actually genuinely, authentically, realistically depict the female experience”. And let’s be honest, it doesn’t get much more patriarchal than that. And UGH you just made me so mad about their inability to show a dialogue between mother and daughter on these subjects. Like demonstrating for your daughter that fulfillment and pleasure aren’t important and you should just put it in the background of your life?!? Like that does anything for healing generational trauma in the maternal line. Oh boy. Tuesday morning and you got me riled! 🫠
YESSSS!! Oh my gosh I'm all riled up again too lol. "Like demonstrating for your daughter that fulfillment and pleasure aren’t important and you should just put it in the background of your life?!? Like that does anything for healing generational trauma in the maternal line. " That's exactly it! That, above all else is what makes me so so angry about this movie - and you nailed it, the virtue/feminism signaling -that's exactly what's happening. Ugh. There are just so many moments in this movie where they bring up the issue, but then the way they deal with it is entirely through the male lens: women being over emotional, women being catty to each other, women needing to be in their place and then all the mom does is model how to not set boundaries and how to not stand up for yourself. "Like demonstrating for your daughter that fulfillment and pleasure aren’t important and you should just put it in the background of your life?!?" and that bullying is okay - you should just run away and stop being who you are and not say anything to anyone about it. You should just make yourself small. Arrrggggg! We've got each other going now! :)
COMPLETELY THIS. All dealt with through the male lens. And the more films that are made this way the more hazy and unclear the path ahead for most women becomes. I mean even in the title of your post which I’m very much paraphrasing from memory but essentially says “DID ANYONE ELSE FEEL PISSED OFF AT THIS FILM?!” Like you noticed something “subtle” that isn’t actually subtle at all (at least to us!) but we have become so primed to it in our society that it very much isn’t felt in a super conscious way. And actually I should not even loop myself in as an “us” here because I couldn’t even articulate to my friends and partner what pissed me off so much about it until you brought it up! It kinda feels like the film “greenwashed” the feminine experience lol. And the majority of people don’t even realize they’re being conned. Ok i will stop now, for fear of inducing more riling lol, (because I suppose that’s just distracting from just going out there and living full honest authentic true empowered lives) but thank you for talking about this. I TRULY believe that by calling a spade and spade like you did so starkly, we can bring all of this out of the shadows. Or rather, continue the push and pull from the shadows that women have been doing for so. many. eons.
Yes! The word subtle came to my mind, but I couldn't figure out how to say what I meant by it and you just did! Ha! yes, greenwashing the female experience. That's just it. I love this so much "Ok i will stop now, for fear of inducing more riling lol, (because I suppose that’s just distracting from just going out there and living full honest authentic true empowered lives)" Because that's really the only thing we can do, isn't it? Rant at injustices, and then live with as much authenticity as we can. So. Many. Eons. Push and pull. I have come to think that's just what it's about here. Learning to find love and beauty and truth amidst that constant tide. I am so so so delighted you took the time to have this conversation! I really really wanted to talk about this movie and you've helped me process it and maybe I can move on now. 😂🙏
Right back at you!! Thank you for starting this convo and also for helping me process. Truly. Love and beauty amidst the constant tide. I love this. A mantra I will keep near and dear 🌊🌊
Hope you feel better soon, Jocelyn. Staying away from garbage movies speed the healing process. 😘 xo
Sound advice, Sandra (or is it Sandra Ann?) ! I really didn't know it would be so bad. I went in blind, but probably should have known better. I've now got some good books from the library. We have a date for a bath and bed after I finish editing a client's website. 😉🙏
Tomayto, tomahto as far as my name is concerned. I love that you can read and work while sick. I just want to curl up in a ball and watch/sleep through true crime. The Murdaugh Murders on Netflix being a good 5 hour binge/nap. xo
Okay on tomaytos and tomahtos. The mom of my best friend used to call them tomahtos and I just loved her for that. ;) I good 5 hour bingenap sounds fabulous actually. And well, I think you can see that I am not always able to work and read based on my poor entertainment decisions while sick and and convalescing. 😂❤️
We all make mistakes. I usually judge a film by who's in it...and who's not. And you can't really go wrong with an old black-and-white. Give me a Humphrey Bogart flick or something Bette Davis (All About Eve forever!), something Carey Grant and everything Hitchcock (BW or full color), or all things noir. Then again, Prime Suspect with Helen Mirren is another good binge/nap. xo
Oooh Helen Mirren is so good. I gave up on the bath/reading, took your sage advice and am now watching Charade with Cary grant and Audrey Hepburn ❤️
Love it. And don't wait for Halloween to watch Arsenic and Old Lace. It's so good. xo
😂 Well, one upside of this particular mistake is this conversation with you. Hitchcock is an all time fave as is any good murder mystery.
🥰😘 xo
This movie has been promoted relentlessly in our Roku, much to our annoyance. I think I will watch it.
Get well!
And thank you for the well wishes! As Sandra Ann Miller pointed out above, a diet of bad movies is maybe not the best medicine lol. Feeling better today tho! xo
Ohmygosh watch it and tell me what you think!! I am so ready to talk about this movie!
Absolutely… just found it.
I watched this movie ... The part that was the most interesting to me was the pool scene, with the two young girls in their tiny bikinis and the way AH seemed to feel about it. This was the most interesting part of the movie because, in 1994 I met the man who has now been my husband for 29 years and he is 26 years younger than me. When we went to weddings of his friends, I was the age of the parents, not the bride and groom! I would often feel out of place and embarrassed, but All of his friends treated me kindly and honorably. It was only me who felt these things. No one else said them to me. The thing I really disliked the most about this movie, was the number of times that ah said. Said I'm sorry! At each one of those places in the script, they're really needed to be a deep dive into what she was. Sorry about. And why she was sorry! Why was she the? Sorry one, that's the part that bothered me the most. I'm so glad you brought this up. Jocelyn, I really wanted to talk to someone about this too!
Hi Dawn! I'm sorry I'm just seeing this now! hahah. Sorry because I left you hanging in a conversation I started. ;) I didn't notice the "i'm sorrys" in the movie, but i FELT them. Like she was just cowering in herself. ugh. That pool scene just bothered me on so so so many levels. Why were the young women scripted to be so silly and mean - I don't think most young women in real life are like that. Why didn't they give AH's character any confidence, even just one moment to stand up for herself. There were about 15 opportunities during that pool sequence. Sigh.
I LOVE your love story! How fabulous. It's so interesting that you felt the age difference but went ahead and fell in love anyway. How do you think doing that, falling in love regardless of age, how has that's changed you or how you show up in your relationship? If at all? I'd love to know!
Hi J! I lost the thread of our convo as well, so sorry to be tuned out for so long! But yes, I feel the idea of different ages of a romantic couple is a pretty big taboo in our culture ... in most cultures, right? I see so many women writing about their kids graduating from HS now, and I begin to see "yes, that happened to me around age 50-60 too," and I see how our lives are all on a relevant track -- like each of us is in a small car lurching about in a long, long train -- we just follow whatever the others/the culture is asking of us, without questioning or even realizing it. When I was at those weddings of my partner's friends years ago, it was another relevant track (we're getting married!), but I stayed in hiding. I thought someone would say, "why are you here with our friend? You're 26 years too old for him! You are our parents' ages!" but no one did that. So I stayed hidden. Quiet. Some women would pat me on the back, saying, "good job getting the young one!" but mostly, I just fell in love with him (whatever THAT is!!) and he fell in love with me, and we just pushed thru all the fear about "being the 'wrong' ages" -- and we're still doing it, still pushing thru. I remember small things about just meeting him at work, and how we just seemed to connect with each other. It did feel magical. I just had a 79th birthday (we met when I was just turning 50), and while I do feel all those years on my heart and soul, I don't look that age exactly ... and so on we go, plummeting thru the years. I do hospice work, and I was with a lovely lady over the weekend who is near the end of her life, and I saw my own life reflecting between us as we chatted -- all these emotions of life, all the attempts we make at loving ourselves just as we are, and loving others no matter what. My relationship with my husband is like a bright light to me, it isn't always perfect and wonderful, but we are always willing to talk things out with each other, and that loyalty to the root of our love really nurtures it when times are rough. Keep writing J! You are doing great with your Substack!! I have fallen off the regularity of it, but I enjoy following along with others like you dear heart! xxoo
I love this extended conversation we're having here. ❤️This is so beautiful, "and so on we go, plummeting thru the years" And I could copy the entire last third it just melted my heart. My husband and I are the same. It's not perfect, but we are committed to showing up with all the emotions and just letting each other be human. It's such a relief to be in a relationship where we have a common healing language and can really be open about what's happening internally for us. And I just adore him. We met and moved in within few days and were married within six months. It sounds crazy, but we both just knew that we could do something special with and for each other if we really opened our hearts.
Can I ask you about your hospice work? In the last few years I have been drawn to it, but don't really know anything about it. Just that I've had a couple of experiences with death that were so beautiful - I could feel the love that was waiting for the dying person and it was like a chorus, but like one I've never heard before. And I want to somehow be a part of that process. We have so little beautiful rituals around dying in our culture. I have been a reiki practitioner for some time and it seems like reiki and hospice might go together well. I'd like to do something with people and away from the computer for the next phase of my life and some type of healing is calling me. How long have you been doing hospice? What is it like for you? How did you find your way there? These are maybe big questions, so please don't answer if it doesn't feel joyous. ;) xoxoxo I am so so happy to have found you here my sweet friend. And thank you for the encouragement on Substack! ❤️🙏🌈
I'll be back! I have some chores to do, but I'll return to our subject! How wonderful that you feel drawn to hospice care as well. One of the patients I am seeing right now is so adorable, I've thought that we would have been best friends if we'd known each other earlier in our lives!
Oh that is just so lovely. Okay! Enjoy your chores. I'll see you here later! xo
I really wanted to like this movie and I think they could’ve done so much better. As a mom, I felt the struggle of putting my kids first and letting their happiness reign supreme over my own. Her daughter was FOR the relationship until it affected her own life. Wouldn’t that be a great time to set an example and show that moms shouldn’t have to put off happiness for FIVE YEARS until the daughter is tucked securely at college?! So many opportunities were missed for her to shatter the “men can date younger women, but when women do it, it’s weird or frowned upon” myth. And here we are again allowing ourselves to feel small so others can be ok. NOPE.
When I find someone who brings joy and happiness in my life, who aligns with what I need, I’m grabbing them. The kids will have to understand and be happy for me.
I was just sooooo frustrated when the girls were sitting around the pool and Solene, tosses her bikini out and puts on a one piece and then COVERS IT UP with a house-sized caftan. Ugh the older-body shaming and let's be clear that AH does not have an older-woman's body. And then how the young women are so caddy and how Solene just shrinks away inside her mumu and doesn't model for them how they could love themselves at the ripe old age of 40. Or how young women could look up to a successful slightly older woman. (Also, she's only freaking 40 - that's another thing all together.) And then the thing with her daughter. Why didn't she stand up for herself AND her daughter (isn't that how we put them first) and SAY something about the bullying? WTF. And then to just show her daughter that it's better to let people shame you into not doing something than it is to believe in yourself? I just couldn't even.
I've not seen the film but now I'm intrigued. 🧐
Also, hope you feel better now! 🫶🏻
Thank you! I am feeling a bit better today. And it's not like I can recommend it lol, but I am soooo curious if you do watch it, to hear what you think! Please come back and tell me. It's streaming on Amazon now fyi. 😉❤️
So I just made my husband watch this film with me and I’m all about rom coms and their cute yet (sometimes) unrealistic premise but I did totally see your point. It did all seem a little ridiculous with the narrative’s double standards — the father able to move on with a 20-something but the mother isn’t able to enjoy her life with a fellow consenting adult. I don’t have children yet alone teenagers but would they really shame a teen daughter for who her mother dates? 🤷🏻♀️🙈 Anyway, I found it mostly entertaining (of course, amazing clothes, visuals, scenery) but also problematic. Hope you’re fully recovered now and if you’re UK based like me enjoying our rare sun sightings. 🤣
I also love a good rom com because of the predictability, which is why I was surprised that this one bothered me so much. Fever induced annoyance perhaps? lol. I think normally, I go into a rom com expecting formula, but something about the _potential_ of this one to tell a different story, that would still have been a love story just grated on me. I'm so glad you watched and shared your thoughts with me. I too loved the clothes and the scenery and of course the pretty people. Visually, it was delightful! I am in Austin, TX of all places, but it's been unusually rainy and grey here and I AM enjoying a lovely sunny day (even spending some time by the pool) today! xo
Very glad you had a sunny day today. We must have gotten the reverse because it was grey and wet here. 🤣
The ending scene was cute but SPOILERS FOR ANYONE READING THE COMMENTS!
I found is super-sad she had to subvert her own needs and desires for “the good” of others and wait a half decade or however long it was. 🤦🏻♀️
The sun was so good, I hope it comes out for you soon! It really does make a difference in my mood. And yes, the end was sweet and I just kept thinking that she didn't have to just wait.