You know I used to be a bad girl....

A few weeks ago Kate & I saw Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, which I loved. Smart dialog, historically interesting, and the lovely Amy Adams.

Since then, I have been thinking about how much I enjoy Amy Adams. I first saw her a few years ago in Junebug, where she managed to be lovable in a pitiable story, hopeful and upbeat in the face of genuine tragedy. I saw the film by myself, sitting in the Vancouver theatre one night when I really needed a break from my university job, and I was just overwhelmed. Here was a story about the inability of one woman to communicate or appreciate across lines of class and education, who was made that much more deplorable by the naive, sweet, undereducated and overly optimistic girl who comes to worship her. Amy Adams plays a lovely young thing trapped by circumstance, who refuses to think of herself or her life as unhappy even as she acknowledges via perverse fascination that there is more to the world than the tiny torn corner of the page she gets to live it in.

In Pettigrew she almost plays a different version of that girl, one who passes up marriage and a baby to escape, but in doing so seems to lose her center of gravity. In this case, she is aided by the older, more experienced and slightly jaded Pettigrew (played admirably by Frances McDormand), and once again seems to have figured out at the end what is important to her, even if it would be lesser than by other's standards.

How many of us live lives that loved ones or passersby might think hold unacceptable sacrifices or resignations? We all fight battles, but we chose, for ourselves, which ones are worth demanding a win in and which disappointments are the ones we can live with. Sometimes I think part of growing up is realizing that everyone makes concessions, and no one can predict or judge -- not even one's younger self -- what those might be. I never thought I would be happy sacrificing some of the things I have, but by and large I do not miss them. At the same time, I am surprised by the things that I find missing, the things that bother me more than a younger me could have ever anticipated -- particularly, the lack of connection to blood family. I'd love to, as Julia Roberts said so poignantly in Steel Magnolias, "sit on a porch, covered in grandchildren, yelling 'No!' and 'Stop that!'" But neither Shelby nor I seem to be headed for such a fate. At the same time, I don't see myself being sad about a footloose and fancy free life of travel and adventure.

At the same time, I do not regret my choices. But on occasion,I find them worth reflecting on because they have lead me places I never expected. For the type-A obsessive planner I am, I continue to find that part of life pleasantly surprising.

I used to love to do the things they tell me not to do,
but now I'm different--now I sing a new song.
~ Everclear, "Volvo Driving Soccer Mom"