broken by brokeback

I just finished watching [Brokeback Mountain]. I thought it would be an amusing movie to watch. Heard that it was about gay cowboys and it went so much further than this. I wasn't quite ready for what I saw. The sad thing is that I saw something that I have also sought and have missed time and time and time again.

I watched scene after scene not quite connecting to most of it excepting to Jack and Ennis. Not even the physical aspects, but the emotional ties. I know every bit of how each of them feel in a way that I don't even know how to fully explain.

I spent most of the film just glued to the screen. I identify so much with Jack it is unreal. You love someone so much. You develop a bond to them and they are too closed to even return it in full and even less when other people walk into the scene. You want so much to love and be with them and you even find ways to make it work, but in the end it is never wanted. You love someone so much more than they love you and it's not fair.

On the other hand, I understand Ennis. He hides so much in terms of himself and his emotions to keep everyone else safe and the one time someone sees him do so, it fucks his life up on a massive scale. He's lost without this person he loves. He tries to escape, to grow, to become something more. He can't give himself totally to this other person, but he won't give himself to anyone else.

The emotional complexities of this movie are similar to the ones I feel with most of my closer male friends. Obviously the actions aren't even close, but I know what it's like to have emotions for someone so strong that you can't even understand them. You just have to follow them and hope that they lead to a good place. You restrain and try to control yourself. You try to be calm about it. Every moment you are away from them, you miss them and you can't stand it. You ache for them and you know that no one else will be able to take the place of that person in your life. Even if you get married.

I know what it's like to remember a friend and want nothing more to hold them close to me. Obviously, for Jack and Ennis, there was more to the story than that...

...but not by much.

I hate the fact that I can identify with this movie and these bisexual guys. Yes, I said bisexual. I don't think Ennis would have been in that kind of relationship with anyone other than Jack and considering his early childhood memories, that says a lot about the love he had for Jack. The scene that particularly stings is the scene with the famous line:

I wish I knew how to quit you!

only to get back

Then why don't you! Why don't you let me be, huh? It's because of you, Jack, that I'm like this. I'm nothing. I'm nowhere.

I know how every word of that sentence feels. It sucks. It really, really does... but that's an explanation for another time...