The movie Dirty Dancing came out the summer I was fifteen...and I think it may have changed me forever. I think I fell in love with Johnny Castle that summer...he was the perfect ideal for me. Here was a guy who was handsome, talented, could have his pick of almost any girl, and the girl he chose was just this awkward, smart, idealistic young woman with no real-world experience. But he didn't just choose her over all the other (prettier) choices, in the end he came to her rescue and stood up for her, proclaimed her to have taught him how to be a better man...
Baby is the girl that (I like to think) I once was...the best man in her life is her Dad; she's always the smart one and never the prettiest; she thinks she can change the world, fix anything; she believes she will be something special one day and that things will always work out for her. Her summer at Kellerman's taught her some hard lessons about life, but they also reconfirmed her belief that things happen the way they are suppose to and that the people you love always come through for you in the end.
I happened by chance to flip to a channel playing Dirty Dancing over the weekend...and I find that after all these years, I am still in love with Johnny Castle. I might actually love him even more now that I see him through the eyes of a grown woman versus those of a teenager. The reality is that all of us who felt awkward growing up (and/or still do), wish for a "Johnny Castle" to choose us over anyone else, sweep us off our feet, love us for just the person that we are, and fight for us despite all odds. Now I get it that real-life is not quite this simple, nor does love seem to happen this way very often when we all come to it with the baggage of our past. But it sure is a nice idea...
Maybe Johnny Castle is the reason for such a high divorce rate in this country?! Not too many men can live up to his ideal... And how many women like me grew up with that ideal shaping their idea of what love could be? So it may be unrealistic, but it sure is fun to spend a couple hours on the couch in that reality and imagine that it could be.
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