memory game

this weekend i took hubbie back to the first b&b we had ever gone to 7 years ago as a valentine's gift.  it is now under new ownership but i booked us in the same private carriage house we had stayed in previously.  despite the updates and improvements to the decor, it was immediately familiar and nice to go back after all these years.

in the spirit of reminiscing, hubbie suggested that we do the same thing we had done after our first visit to the inn.  i couldn't remember what that had been, so he reminded me that we had gone to see a movie on our way home.  (it's funny -- on friday i was chatting with a coworker and she shared this one random memory she had of her parents, wondering aloud why, out of all the things she could have remembered about them, that particular moment was so vivid.  i said i thought that memories are like that; we don't really choose them, they kind of choose us -- if that makes any sense).

and so on our way home, hubbie and i stopped at a movie and he even agreed to my pick: the vow.  it's a movie inspired by the true events of a real-life couple named kim and krickitt carpenter who, after less than 10 weeks of marriage, barely survived a terrible car accident.  the wife, portrayed by rachel mcadams, suffered severe head trauma and woke up with no recollection of her husband and the years they had shared.  in real life, krickitt carpenter never regained her memory and her and kim are still married with 2 children.  it's an amazing testament to love and the sanctity of marriage.  i can't even begin to imagine what it would be like to forget all the little things my husband and i built up as a couple -- our inside jokes, the way we can communicate without speaking, the things we've learned and shared with each other.  those are all the things that tie us together, that make the vows we took on our wedding day even stronger.  so i could see how difficult it would be to lose all that and have to essentially start over again.

there was one part of the movie i especially liked.  the husband, played by channing tatum, asks his wife out on a "first" date and brings her on a retrospective tour of their actual first date, convincing her to agree to it by comparing it to reading a favorite book again.  afterwards, he tells his friends that the date went even better than the first time around. 

coincidentally, it reminded me of this weekend.