Deep Thoughts by Jalayne

Remember this one? When we were younger, Mom purchased quite a few movies from the selection offered by Feature Films for Families. This was one of our favorites, I think.

I specifically remember one time when Uncle Ken came for a visit and we watched this together. His favorite line was: "We'll call ourselves the Buttercreamettes!" I remember laughing with him about that line, over and over again.

Kim and I enjoyed these movies. There were quite a few that were real duds like "The Seventh Brother" or "Behind the Waterfall" or "Jacob Have I Loved". Nonetheless, we enjoyed quoting them and watching them together. As we got older, Mom purged our little collection simply leaving us with "Split Infinity" and "Rigoletto", our two favorites.

Over the last week or so I have been on a few trips to D.I. and decided to look for "The Buttercream Gang" so that I could take a little trip down memory lane. After looking through several D.I.s, I found success at the fourth one. I watched this today as I walked on the treadmill.

For those who haven't seen it, let me sum-up. Scott, Pete, Lenny, and Eldon are best friends and members of the Buttercream Gang (a local group that performs service for those who need it). Pete moves to Chicago to live with his aunt and joins a gang. His aunt sends him back home where he begins to reek havoc on anyone and everyone. Because Scott and Pete were such good friends, Scott sees it as his duty to save Pete from utter destruction.

The intended moral of the movie is that once you love yourself, you can love others. Unconditional love and service for those around you is the only way to help them change and reach their potential. After lots of talk about "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth" everything is resolved, but I won't tell you how.

However, the moral I discovered during today's viewing is this: friendships change and friendships evolve. That's life. We don't/can't keep our friends forever because then we won't grow. When I say we can't keep our friends forever, I don't mean that we say "It was nice knowing you. Goodbye. Have a good life! Now this friendship is over." What I mean is that things change and because of these changes in our lives, our friendships will naturally change. Our relationships will fluctuate as our lives do. We grow closer to some people and farther away from others. That's life. It isn't easy, but that's the way it is.

I have a couple of friends from high school that I talk to maybe once every two months (that's not a whole lot) but I still consider them to be two of my closest friends. They are at different stages in their lives; they are both married, graduated, and have/will have a baby while I am single and finishing school. The dynamic of our friendship has changed because our lives have changed. That's the way it works. We don't hold any hard feelings because we don't tell each other everything anymore or because we don't talk to each other all the time anymore. Now they have husbands they tell everything to and they have families to raise. But that doesn't make us any less of friends. That's just the way it works.

I have said it before and I'll say it again: people come into our lives for a reason. They fulfill that purpose, we grow, and we move on. We maintain some of these friendships, and some of them we don't. Elphaba put it quite nicely:

It well may be
That we will never meet again
In this lifetime
So let me say before we part
So much of me
Is made of what I learned from you
You'll be with me
Like a handprint on my heart
And now whatever way our stories end
I know you have re-written mine
By being my friend...

"The Buttercream Gang" isn't really that deep of a movie, I just think too much. If you knew me you would know that I over-analyze and think about every detail a few times over. You must go watch this wonderful masterpiece! You will surely enjoy the awkward fourteen year old boy-girl-interactions, hair styles, and fashion. Believe me, this movie is worth the whole two dollars I spent at D.I. If you want to borrow it-well, CAUTION: it might take me too long to think about it so you might just want to get your own copy two dollar copy. If you don't feel like the movie was worth your two dollars, come find me and we'll have a deep, thoughtful discussion that will make it worth your money.