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“It all began on New Year’s Day in my 32nd year of being single . . . I suddenly realized that unless something changed soon, I was going to live a life where my major relationship was with a bottle of wine and I’d finally die, fat and alone and be found three weeks later, half eaten by wild dogs. Or I was about to turn into Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction. And so I made a major decision. I had to make sure that next year I wouldn’t end up shitfaced and listening to sad FM easy listening for the over thirties. I decided to take control of my life and start a diary to tell the truth about Bridget Jones, the whole truth.” ~ Bridget Jones
Well, it is New Year’s Eve in my 32nd year of being single and what should appear on my television but Bridget Jones’s Diary. So many of us female “singletons” can relate to this film, especially the opening sequence with Bridget sitting on a couch in her PJs, drinking wine and singing “All By Myself.” I think I have played out this scene in my own life way too many times–many occurring just in this past year.
I think the part I can relate to the most in this film is keeping a diary, or in my case, a journal. I have kept journals since high school, capturing all of my teenage angst, drama and desires to get the hell out of Detroit. I continued the journaling tradition all throughout college, after college, through my numerous relocations and I still try to journal to this very day. However I must admit that since I started this blog, I don’t journal as often as I used to. I have started using this blog as my journal. So now instead of my journal having an audience of just myself, I now have an audience of six, maybe seven people–sometimes. There are still some entries that are only read by myself. It is kind of nice to have a small audience but there is a downside, as I have recently learned. There are some things that should remain in a journal with an audience of one. Some times the one person you wouldn’t expect to read your journal, or blog, reads it and you have no choice but to accept the consequences–as Bridget learned all too well when Mark Darcy read the horrible things she wrote about him in her diary. But I feel she handled it with grace and dignity–I’m sure I would have done the same.
“I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean it. I mean I meant it but I was so stupid that I didn’t mean what I meant. For Christ’s sakes. It’s only a diary. Everyone knows diaries are just full of crap.”
It’s only a blog and we all know that blogs are just full of crap. No one reads them. And tonight at midnight, a new year starts. A new year fresh from mistakes, a chance for a fresh start. Let’s leave 2010 in 2010 and look forward to 2011 as a nice clean slate.
Define Normal 