Too bad life is not like a Hallmark movie (well sometimes)

It’s funny when you look back on your life and really think about what you expected your life to be in your thirties. A different picture comes to mind –one with children, husband, career, pet, and a picket fence. Somehow when you wake up you discover that the pretty picture you painted for yourself in those formative years may not be the happily ever after you thought or even wanted. I have a little confession to make. Although a lover of good films and what I consider to be good music and food I have a secret guilty pleasure…it’s Hallmark movies. 

There’s always a second chance, sometimes there’s death and cancer too but mostly they’re about finding that love (whether it’s a man or a child or a career) when you thought all hope was lost. As a single woman in her late thirties (gulp) hope, happiness, and contentment come in all different shapes and sizes. I’m not an unhappy person. I have family, friends, and a cat that I truly love. I go out on the town and consume great food and music. I have a job that I love most of the time. My life is far from empty but the idea that another kind of happily ever after is out there waiting for me –no matter how trivial, fills me with a sense of wonder and relief. So I find myself looking towards these films with B actors (or former A ones) as my second chance - A second chance at love, life, and my own storybook ending. 

I know most folks would laugh at the formulaic, overly sentimental story-lines and wonder what kind of person eats this stuff up. I guess that kind of person is me. A former cynic who’s eagerly awaiting what that hope feels like again –for a fresh start. I recently moved back to a town I used to live. I’m trying to carve out a new path in a familiar place. I’m desperately trying to build community in an old place but I want to make that place new. How do you build a brand new life where so many old memories haunt you? With hope I guess. Hope for a future unknown but not over-not forgotten. Dare I say that this is the beginning of a new chapter and if I can just get out of my own way maybe things will change for the better? Holy crap! That sounds like hope.