Not too distantly ago, the following exchange was related to me an acquaintance, or friend if he will grant it to me, who is perhaps my favorite staunch conservative of all time. It does not relate in content at all to what I intent to write about, but I have remembered the principal ever since. I’m not sure if it is universally true, or even worthwhile, but it is, at least, intellectually enjoyable.
Prior to the recent election cycle, the aforementioned acquaintance (or friend [as relayed above]) and his mentor were discussing the proposition in California election (which passed) that aimed to restrict the definition of marriage by allowing it to apply only to unions between a man and a woman. My friend relayed to me with a sense of humor that, while he is as conservative a person as he has met, his mentor is quite the opposite. And my friend told me that, strangely enough, he and his mentor were so opposite in leanings, left vs. right, that they had actually ended up circling the globe and meeting on the other side. They both were for the proposition. My friend, as a conservative Christian, felt that civil unions gave gay couples rights enough without compromising the sanctity of marriage. His mentor, as a very extreme liberal, thought “to hell with the whole institution,” and said, what with all the mockery that is made of marriage already by straight people and the majority of marriages ending in divorce anyway, that the gay rights movement should want nothing to do with such a thoroughly gutted and useless thing as the institution of marriage. That these two dogmatically opposite men should come to the same conclusion over such a heated subject amused him then and me now as I recall it.
I can’t say I have the same opinion of California’s Proposition 8, nor do I plan to turn this post into a debate over gay marriage (notice the title of this post is “Growing Old”), but the concept I love in this story is that image of coming so far one direction that you end up entirely on the other side of things. That two entirely disparate ideals or concepts can become one in decision or sentiment, now that is interesting. I want to think about this.
If you are my friend, you will indulge that nonsense above and read on to the meat of this, ignoring my inconsideration at keeping you thus far for no other reason than my own vanity and intellectual stimulation. What follows is what I mean to say.
I never write about movies. But. I watched Frost/Nixon tonight. I was seriously and deeply moved. I know this is not a universal response. I watched “Requiem for a Dream” years ago and had the same response. When we watched “Requiem for a Dream,” we could not speak of happy things until hours later when we had caught our breath. There was no joking that followed the movie. Everyone felt uncomfortable. I don’t require that everyone who watched Frost/Nixon with me tonight felt the same way. But I did.
The movie details the interview that David Frost conducted with Richard Nixon in which Nixon admits to conspiring to cover-up the incidents surrounding the Watergate scandal. In the end of it all, when the drama is finished and Nixon has confessed, it leaves us with a very humbled, human image of Nixon. Whether it is accurate or in tune with the man in real life, the image the movie portrays is that of a Nixon who has chosen, to the detriment of all his outward ambitions, honesty and transparency and responsibility for his actions and the resulting internal peace with the world that comes with admitting your mistakes.
The very last scene of the movie follows his goodbye to Frost, with whom he has ended on good terms and mutual respect. And we (he, the president, and us, the viewers) are left on his balcony as the end credits roll and he stares out to sea, lost, presumably, in a sea of regret over the wrongs he has committed. Wow, horribly worded metaphor, just bad. Anyways, I wanted to comment on something about this. I hurt when I see lonely old people. Seriously, if you want to cripple me under waves of emotion, just take me to an old folks home with a lot of old folks sitting around in wheelchairs wishing their kids would come to visit them, or their husbands and wives were still alive, or that anyone would come to visit them. Watching this movie, true to form, I hurt for someone who, as portrayed here, ended up lonely, regretting the wrongs he had committed.
Here’s the last paragraph, where I will presumably relate all of this F/N business back to the opening anecdote. Well here goes. I remember, growing up, that I lamented each mistake I made, thinking how depressing it was to go through life accumulating the burdens and weight that regret for the bad decisions made brings to each of us. I think now, looking back over the ups and downs and successes and failures, that when I truly regret mistakes I’ve made, they weigh on me, and I hurt, like the young version of me thought I would. The saving grace in all of this is that what I’m starting to learn is that when I begin to stop trying to be perfect, and externalize and admit my sorrow for the bad things I do, mistakes I make, and go so far into feeling regret as to release it in the form of an admission and apology to the person I have wronged, I come full circle, and, like the liberal and conservative marking the same choice on the ballot, I end up on the other end of things, with the transformed memory of regret a sort of peace and joy instead. So I relish growing old, with all its perils and challenges. It is frightening and deeply fulfilling at the same time.
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