In the movie Groundhog Day, Bill Murray’s character awakes every morning to the same exact day. Because of this, he is able to live each day without consequences and still wake up the next morning as if nothing happened. He eats whatever he wants, commits suicide, and is an all out jerk, yet the next morning he’s still in his bed reliving Groundhog Day all over again.
Aside from the monotony of it all, the fact that his character seems to despise Pittsburgh, living the same day over and over again doesn’t seem like the worst thing could happen a person…well, that is until said person falls in love…
Soon he does, he falls in love with Andie McDowell’s character and they have an affair. However, every morning when Murray wakes up she is gone. When he sees her that day, it is as if it never happened. She has no recollection of the event, which doesn’t say much about his performance. Just kidding, it is of course because the day has started over again as if nothing had ever happened.
I wish I could do that. Start dating a person over again and make them forget what they learned after reading my articles, because as soon as they see them, they disappear and no not because I too, like Murray’s character, am trapped in this metaphysical type of “Groundhog Day.” It breaks my heart every time, not because I’d grown attached to the person but because I didn’t even get the chance to.
It makes me feel like the Elephant Man. Nobody wanted him. How pathetic am I?
After meeting one particularly lovely person, I thought I made a major faux pas. I freaked out… He’d stayed so long…managed to read my articles and still wanted to talk to me, even more actually. And I ruined it or thought I did. It was fun while it lasted… It was really fun actually… I decided that spending time with him was too nice to be resentful or hurt over even if I didn’t hear from him again. I decided that I would remember it as something happy and strive for something similar in the future.
If it wasn’t for the abandonment issue I’d developed over the last few years, I wouldn’t have reacted so insecurely. When they disappeared that was it. They disappeared. To my utter shock, I did hear from him again. And then I realized that these guys were dumping me because I followed my dream- well not because of the dream specifically, but because if I hadn’t pursued it in the first place, they wouldn’t have had the opportunity to read my articles and subsequently dump me over what they read. Well ain’t that some odd kind of double edged sword….
In the end of the movie, Bill Murray wakes up one morning and to his surprise Andie McDowell is silently sleeping next to him. He is not only struck by her beauty, she looks like an angel, but struck by the fact that she is still there in his bed; that Groundhog Day is finally over. No doubt he has developed some sort of abandonment issue and it will still be several days if not weeks before he believes she will actually stay…
I still don’t believe it, when I am talking to a guy and he continues to respond to me, call me, and ask me out, that it will last for long. I am always fearful that an ending looms shortly around the corner, just like it has every other time. I sit on pins and needles and patiently wonder which article or piece of writing will be the one that pushes him over the edge and into the abyss where all the other guys ended up (likely the same abyss that stole my socks out of the washing machine). I do not know what this abyss has against me. It sometimes feels like black jack: I wonder how much of myself I can reveal without going bust. But then I think about it and it settles in my mind that the abyss is more friend than foe. Not sure what it has against socks, but I do know it has saved me many times from sub par relationships, jerks, and all out bad situations.
Unfortunately even when things are going good with a guy, I still feel like Bill Murray did every morning in the movie Groundhog Day. I still wake up expecting him not to be there (metaphorically). I have an even harder time believing that if I ever do wake up with a love interest in my bed that this won’t be the last time I see him. No, not because of poor performance on my part, but because I have grown used to being abandoned.
For another awesome post inspired by the movie Groundhog Day, check out “GROUNDHOG DAY” by STATHI STATHI
Be happy the losers abandoned. The right guy will stick around!!!!!
I am happy- thanks! And you’re right! He will be worth the wait, I’m sure
Abandonment issues are very strong. I don’t have them. Glad to have moved on. I have been thinking about the movie Harold and Maude. She knows how to move on and live each moment as the unique beautiful woman she is and she invites the people who come in contact with her to do that too. Attachment is the path to suffering according to the Buddha. You are fine. Very fine. Just as you are. Soulmates are all around you. Treat them well.
Beautiful concept “Soulmates are all around you. ”
Thank-you Suzanne
Suzanne, i love Harold and Maude but wondered about Maude’s choice. it didn’t appear she was suffering from a debilitating condition or had a medical cause for suicide. she certainly appeared to have more gusto and verve than many of the characters so i was mystified. i can understand quality of life concerns but suicide otherwise seems selfish and a cowardly way out that doesn’t take into account the collateral damage that results from the action. “Rage Against The Dying of the Light!” the whole “It Get’s Better” campaign is directed at gay and other teens who are bullied to stop them from abandoning life.
It was time. She was brave and sure that she wanted to go out on top. She glowed and taught us all the lesson of non attachment.
the problem is that healthy human beings can no more prevent attachments than velcro strips can. no one not even the Buddha or Ayn Rand is sprung fully formed from the earth. it is a psychological truism that we fist learn to stand in a group before we can stand alone. the old quote “No Man is an Island” is as true today as ever. if one chooses to end their life they should not pretend that in doing so theirs is the only life being affected. another great movie to make this point “It’s A Wonderful Life” if Maude had chosen to live as a hermit that would be one thing but to get entangled in the lives of others and then unilaterally withdraw and expect those who had treasured the relationship to have no feelings about the loss is insensitive to say the least. non attachment to things is one thing but non attachment to persons is inhuman.
—–“The great use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it.”
William James
Well, the final scene of the young boy playing the musical instrument after he had faked his own death with the car says it all. He was free. He learned that from her and he needed to be free from his mother. Attachments to people are the very thing that causes us pain. It isn’t just attachment to objects that the Buddha was talking about. Death is very final and it is very stressful and sad. But it is also a release. There is a reason we all have to die. Nothing lasts forever and when we try to hang on we get hurt.
you have forgotten the most important point of the story of Groundhog Day that being the reason Bill Murray is finally able to move on is he has grown as a person and is no longer the self absorbed jerk he was at the beginning of the film. it was kind of a play on the notion of karma. you just keep doing things over and over again till you get it right. the problem of course is we don’t get a dress rehearsal in real life. life comes at you live and in 3D and you just have to roll with it just like everybody else. the problem is we all have all these expectations and all this baggage it gets in the way and obscures our view. things get clearer if we can shed some of this stuff. Happy Easter
Thanks for pointing that out- I guess I was using the literal part of the movie- and I never realized, believe it or not, that that the entire movie is based on the concept of Karma. You learn something new everyday. I do remember him changing and growing as a person and that being how he finally got out of the pattern…
Happy Easter!!!
Sometimes we personally jeopardize things so people will move on and we will not have to absorb the hurt that we think is going to happen.
One day you have to take a leap of faith.
Huggggggggggggggg
so true
Well said and truely spoken!!! I just had a conversation about this!!!
Keep up the wonderful work Hayley!! You have always been a phnominal writer!!!;-)
Daina
Thank-you Daina 🙂