Independence Day

Ok. It's 1:37 a.m. as I start this post. I crashed at 7:30 with a sinus headache but when I got up to find the Nyquil, Rusty had recorded "Independence Day". We'd been talking about it lately, how much we liked that movie when we saw it as young, unmarried college students, how it had been on HBO at least five times a day the year we got married, how great the special effects were. We'd seen that the Baysox were having a drive-in movie tonight and it was, in fact, "Independence Day". So of course, I had to stay up and watch it. And you know what? It sucked.

Oh, the special effects are still there. And Will Smith is still as dazzlingly cute as ever. But whether it was the fact that I'm now a wife and mother? Or that it was hard to see N.Y. blown up then a flaming World Trade Center in the background? I don't know. The scenes of people running down the street in terror? It was all I could do to not cry. And I know it's only a movie. Holy crap! Will someone please just smack me and tell me to get a hold of myself already?

When Will Smith's girlfriend is running for her life holding her son? Then when they find the First Lady and her daughter run in and snuggles with her? And then the First Lady dies and the president has to sit with his little girl in the hallway and tell her that her mom died? Tears. Tears streaming down my face, people. Because all I could see was myself, and my family. Is this what getting older and having a life is all about? Or was it my cynsism that now the pilots from all over the world wouldn't be able to get along if the human race depended on it? Because it sucks. Can I not watch a movie without projecting myself and my reality into it anymore?

You know, it's entirely possible that this is just a case of PMS or sinus crankiness or something. But man... talk about bad timing.