14 Years Later

Last night was awesome.

Titanic 3D.

I don't think I can fully convey to you the passion that I have for the tragic tale of Jack and Rose. But I'm going to try.

Rewind 14 years. I'm 14 years old. SUPER awkward, totally ugly, sporting something like a bowl-cut. I am just starting to experiment with make-up - green eyeliner, and my 'cool' outfit is a blue plaid shirt with a dennim collar worn under denim overalls. And I love chokers. It half makes me cry thinking about it, and half makes me laugh that I was so lame. I was not a cool kid.

But you know who I thought was the COOLEST person EVER? My Aunt Linda. She was 24, lived in the city with 2 super cool girl friends, they all had great hair and clothes, and cool friends and raised their hands AND clapped at church (gasp!), went to university, had cars and jobs, and were practically groupies for the Barenaked Ladies. They were so cool. I was not. But despite that, my Aunt Linda loved me. She came home one weekend from the city and drove me in her new red car to the town 45 minutes away where there was not only a movie theatre, but a KFC as well! And we had a date. It was wonderful. We saw Titanic and I fell in love.

The next day I started my biggest art project ever - a collage of Leonardo Dicaprio pictures that was no smaller than 8 feet by 8 feet - on the ceiling above my bed so he would be the first thing I'd see in the morning and the last thing at night. I also started sporting a super cool "Jack and Rose" pin. It was about 4 inches square and I wore it on the outer layer of all my clothing for the better part of three years. I saw the movie three times in theatres (remember: no theatre in my town, so it was not easy to do that), and when it came out on video I watched it every week for a year, then every other week for a year, then once a month for a year and I've weaned myself slowly down to once a year since then.

But for the last 18 months I've been holding out knowing that a 3D version was coming to theatres. And I went last night and it was everything I remembered. Literally. I remembered all the lines, all the movie mistakes, all of the scenes that were taken from actual pictures, all the historical inaccuracies, the clothes, the hair and even the jewlery. Yes. For reals even that.

It was glorious! I was in my element recreating 14 year old loser-Nikki, and realizing that I'm now 29 year old awesome-Nikki and if I want to love Leonardo Dicaprio I can, because even though Titanic was his first real break, and all the haters back in the day hated on him for it, I think we can all agree that Leo legitimately is for real, super talented.

The other best part, was that the guy beside me (think Hurley from Lost), had never seen the movie and at every semi-shocking thing he would gasp or cry out or comment in shock. He was hilarious. In the one scene where Rose is getting her corset laced he actually grunted out loud. I don't know how it is possible to be a 30 year old man and NEVER have seen Titanic! That's ridiculous. It's like saying you've never heard of chocolate, or seen the sun! I'm not even convinced he knew that the ship was going to sink! At the end of the movie after the death of Jack and Rose he was slumped in his chair in shock and awe of the movie he had just seen (I get that, the movie is awesome), but it was just so unreal to me that he was SO shocked and so upset by the movie! How had he NEVER seen it before???? I feel like his life was not complete until last night at 11:45pm when the movie was done.

And if you haven't seen it before... well.... your life is not complete. And I'm not even joking, I'm dead serious.