(500) Days...

Recently, a friend and I were chatting, about relationships and vulnerability, and the like, and the movie (500) Days of Summer was brought up.

People, this movie is so wonderful.  It is the anti-love story, but the hopeful love story at once.  I adore this film, and highly recommend it.  However, this blog post will be full of spoilers.  You have been warned.

In (500) Days of Summer, Tom (average dude) meets Summer (average gal).  They hit it off, date, build a relationship, and so forth.  Then, Summer tells Tom they should break up.  The movie goes back and forth over a period of 500 days:  happy days, sad days, when they were together, when they were apart.  Tom, saddened by Summer ending their relationship, embarks on a journey of self-discovery…so to speak.  He spends countless days analyzing their relationship, what went wrong, what he did, what she did.  His friends come along side him, and try to help him, in essence, mourn the loss of Summer, and what he thought she represented for him. 

There is a poignant scene towards the end of the movie, where Tom and Summer run into each other, post breakup.  She invites him to a party at her place.  The scene splits into a side by side montage of his ‘expectations’ (he and Summer meet up at the party and rekindle their lost love), and the ‘reality’ (Summer is engaged to another man).  This scene?  Always breaks my heart.

In the end, Summer (married), finds Tom (single).  They sit and talk, and ultimately find closure with each other.  In the last scene, Tom meets another girl.

Her name is Autumn.

The movie ends on this note:  hopeful Tom, and Autumn.  Perhaps, just perhaps, love is not finished for him yet.

So.  God has been working in my heart, in my life.  Bringing me back to Him.  He has taken me by the hand and pulled me out of a place of darkness.  He began tearing down my walls, and His glorious light is what came streaming through. 

Over the last few months, I feel like God has been allowing me to remember, like Tom.  He has shed light on memories that I have been keeping buried.  And, in bringing them back, He is allowing me to confront them, and release them. 

My heart was broken once.  And, like Tom, I embarked on a journey of 500 (or many more) days trying desperately to retrace my steps.  To figure out what I did.  To put the pieces together, in a puzzle that never went together to begin with.  I had faith that things would work.  I had hope.  I had the tenacity to keep trying. 

And, one day, I learned that he had moved on, like Summer.  And I was left depleted.  Exhausted.  Alone.  I mourned the loss of that friendship, of that man.  I mourned the loss of what I thought could have, or should have been.  I hung my star on a crumbling pedestal. 

I found, to my horror, that I had grown accustomed to the pain.  As time separated me from him, I found that even the feeling of missing him was leaving.  And, finally, one day, I discovered that I didn’t miss him at all.  Instead of feeling relieved, I was met with emptiness.  I almost didn’t know how to exist outside of that place of longing, hoping, believing, and even heartache. 

Again, like Tom, I found myself waiting for my own Autumn.  For a man who would come along side me, and be what the other man wasn’t.  And, I found myself frightened at the thought.  For many reasons.  But, mostly, because I was (and still am) afraid of reliving my 500 days of summer. 

God has been faithful, continues to be faithful to me.  I have finally allowed Him to truly heal my heart.  To take my broken pieces, and mend them, and make me whole.  I have finally given Him the pain I kept so close.  I have severed all ties to him, the man who illuminated my life for such a short season.  I can look back with complete clarity, though it took me awhile to see through the fog.  I firmly believe that God allowed me to walk that road, because He knew where it would lead:  back to His arms.

I have not met my autumn yet, but I know he is out there. 

And, for the first time in a very, very long time, I am ecstatic over the thought. 

Sure, fear creeps in, trying to set up camp occasionally, but God has been helping me look past it. 

To hope again.