Evening

I watched the movie Evening tonight and basically cried on my sofa for 1hr and 45 min. This movie is so sad that it rivals Steel Magnolias and Terms of Endearment. The movie is about 2 sisters who are about to lose their mother and they try to piece together the segments of stories she has told them about her life when she was younger and the "mistakes" she had made.
This movie makes you remember that your mothers weren't always moms and wives. Our mothers cried over boys, had fights with their best friends, got fired from jobs and probably even got really drunk one night and had a one night stand. The problem is they don't always tell us that stuff and sometimes we need to hear it. Sometimes we need to hear about the things that happened BEFORE us and before our fathers came into the picture because it makes us realize that history does repeat itself and we are not that much different than our mothers deep down inside.
My mother is the strongest person I know, the ONLY person in the family who can curse at my father and walk away unscathed. When I was younger my parents fought alot behind closed doors. I was too young to really know what they were fighting about, but I knew it was bad. My mother would eventually walk out of the war zone wearing huge sunglasses (at night in the house) to hide her tears and she would talk to me in her calmest voice like nothing was wrong and she would go back in the kitchen and cook dinner for my Dads family....the same one that they were fighting about 30 minutes earlier. My mothers strength is something I will never know. I have NEVER been able to hide my emotions like she can. When I was 15 and crying hysterically on the phone to a boy that had just dumped me, my mom took the phone out of my hands and told me to never let a man see me cry. I wish I had listened, because I have shed way too many tears in front of way too many men and it did neither me nor them any good and didn't change the outcome of the situation. I still ended up dumped, but instead of walking away proud with my sunglasses on like my mom would have done, I walked away with mascara stains running down my cheeks, swollen eyes and a blotchy complexion. Not exactly the last image you want the "last greatest love of your life" to have forever embedded in his head.............
My mom also told me to never date a bartender and I didn't listen to her then either. I had to find out the hardway.......and ended up walking away with mascara stains running down my cheeks. Our mothers don't dream this stuff up, they lived it and survived it and are attempting to save us from the same heartbreak. Unfortunately, we rarely listen to our mothers.