Can't hardly wait

It's that time again. It's time for my semi-annual rewatching of Can't Hardly Wait, the 1998 film featuring music of the same ungrammatical name (yes, I briefly wrote about it nearly two years ago in my "That girl" post). What is my fascination with this movie? Perhaps that's too complex to start with. It's a fun, campy movie (that, apparently, still means a lot to many people). And the main character gets the girl in the end.

It's safe to say a lot has changed in the last 22 years. The movie, though, is a time capsule. We've changed. Our world has changed. Things that were okay or even funny in 1998 are no longer okay and funny, as this dumb article points out (leave it to Buzzfeed to miss the point). You can't take things out of the context in which they were created and examine them under the harsh light of today. Things were different then. This movie was never intended to be scrutinized or taken seriously. It was mindless entertainment back then, and it should have been forgotten two decades later. So why haven't I forgotten it? 

It's a happy movie from a happier time. The nineties were good years. The music was better. The air was cleaner. My body was arguably better (and definitely not as hairy). Okay, that's about it. Since this blog is largely retrospective in nature, it's easy for me to get caught up in nostalgia. Here, nostalgia is a girl — the girl who got away. Trust me, I'm not nostalgic by nature. I like to look forward. There is something inescapable about that girl. She is the one who can walk into literally any corridor in my heart or mind. Nothing is locked. Nothing is put away. It's all out there for her. For someone as cloistered as me, that is an extremely rare, beautiful, yet scary, thing. 

My personal dream girl may have gotten away all those years ago, but in this movie, I can relive a moment when some clueless, lovestruck guy gets his dream girl (played by Jennifer Love Hewitt). This movie was made in an era when happy endings were common. There were few copouts or ambiguous endings. Movies gave people what they wanted. 

The whole movie, basically, takes place at a party. It's a graduation party. This is the last time these people are going to see each other, blah, blah, blah. It has the usual party shenanigans. I laugh out loud at many of the scenes, especially the character who steals things throughout. This movie didn't take itself seriously, and neither should we.

In 1998 when this movie came out, my life, I thought, was set. I had a girl. I had a job that paid the bills. I had plans to return to school very soon (even telling that to someone who called me about a job). In my mind, everything was good. And then it wasn't. The girl cheated on me within a year of being together. I started drinking pretty heavily as a result. The job became a trap. I never went back to school ... until two decades later. 

It's easy for me to look back and say, "Hey, things should not be like this. They should have been better." And maybe they should have been. But I got what I got because I made the decisions I made and also because I was programmed that way. So it's a nice thing for me to sit on my little couch and watch this movie because I'm right back there at that moment when I could have made a completely different life for myself. And for a moment, I have the girl. It's 1996 again, and I say the right words. Happily ever after. 

Movies these days are so cynical. They're so smart, they've lost their audience. They are wholly unsatisfying. Where are the happy endings? Are we too knowing or too special for that? We may know better now, but who said movies are supposed to mirror reality? Maybe that's my attraction to movies like this. I don't want reality. I want what could have been, not what was. I got the short end of the stick and a very unhappy ending in my life. I don't need to see that crap in a movie and nod my head knowingly. I want possibilities that make my heart beat faster. I want the unexpected. I want that girl to say yes when I ask her to be my forever. I want to look in that girl's eyes and tell her the truth, which is I still see my future in her eyes, the words I wanted to say all those years ago but didn't. 

While fashion and music and my body have changed over the past 20-some years, some things have not. My heart still begs for a happy ending. My mind still enjoys the thought of a particular girl. Another 20 years from now, I imagine those things will remain. And, if I am right and there really is a happy ending and I really do get to tell her the words I've been waiting to say, then I can hardly wait. (I couldn't bring myself to write that ungrammatically, haha.)

Thank you for reading. And God bless.