Nancy Slotnick: People Think I’m Crazy

“The only way you could meet my crazy was by doing something crazy yourself.”  –Bradley Cooper as Pat in Silver Linings Playbook

We all bring our crazy to a relationship.  Silver Linings does a beautiful job of writing a relationship where both participants are crazy but they take turns.  They meet each other where they’re at.  They end sentences with a preposition.  They scream and throw dishes in public.  They hug people whom they have a restraining order against or from.  They end sentences with a preposition again.  Did I mention that people call me crazy? They think I’m dreaming my life away, just like John Lennon wrote.

I struggle with how to let people into my life without letting them take over.  How to embrace my crazy without getting caught up in it.  How to recognize someone else’s crazy when they’re telling you it’s you.  And when it’s also you.  So complicated.

Spoiler alert- I’m going to talk about Silver Linings some more- I just loved it so much.   It is rare for a romantic comedy (nay, romantic comedy/drama) to get it right without being trite.  One of my favorite scenes was at the diner.  Tiffany (Jennifer Lawrence) opens up about herself and seems to be having a moment with Pat.  She offers to help her out and then he insults her by not wanting to be associated with her in the context of his ex-wife.

Rather than crying and running out of the restaurant (at first, at least), which I would have done, she balks. That’s the best word for her face.  She looks at him, condescendingly, and says; “You actually think I’m crazier than you.”  Not in the form of a question, but as a statement of disbelief.  It’s great.  I admire that.  I wish that in the midst of a heated argument I could have the composure to do that.  It was awesome.  And then she smashes all the dishes off the table in one fell swoop and runs out of the restaurant, crying.  I kind of wish I could do that too.   The dishes part.  The crying part I’m good at.

The beauty of it is that Pat realizes in that moment that he’s crossed a line and then he comes to the rescue on her crazy.  They go back and forth on this as their relationship blooms.  And that gives new meaning to the phrase the “dance of intimacy.”

That phrase sounds too flowery to me but you get what I mean.  When people say that relationships take work, this is what they are referring to.  It’s unscrambling the egg on what’s your crazy and what’s his (or her) crazy.  Embracing your crazy in an unabashed way.  But being mindful to keep it in check when your partner’s crazy needs tending to.  Not getting too lost in your own crazy that you can’t be there for someone else. Being stand up.  Putting that first.

People say I’m crazy and it makes me want to back off of myself.  It makes me want to life the wrong life.  It makes me run away from love.  In the words of John Lennon “I just have to let it go.”