From 13 to 30: How The Notebook Shaped My Idea of Love

Lonely Girl: The Stories I've Yet to Tell - Part 2

On my flight home from Colorado, I decided to watch a movie. As I scrolled through my list of options, a familiar title jumped out at me: The Notebook. I thought, There’s no way I can watch The Notebook on this flight right now. I’d seen it a hundred times, and there were so many other great options to choose from.

But as I kept scrolling, something kept pulling me back to that damn photo. You know the one. Ryan Gosling in the rain, holding Rachel McAdams in his arms, her hands cupping his face, rain falling all around them.

I was in elementary school when The Notebook came out.

I remember it vividly because there were ads for it everywhere. (I don’t think they market movies like that anymore — or maybe they do, and I’m just less impressionable now). But I begged my parents to let me watch it and they said no. Too mature, they told me. I’d have to wait.

A few years later, it aired on TV one afternoon. My friend Madeline was over, and we were hanging out in my parents’ bedroom while my mom folded laundry. When I saw it was on, I begged her again, Please, Mom! Please, can we watch it? She hesitated but eventually agreed, so long as the three of us watched it together.

When I tell you, I held onto every single moment of that movie. It was, as far as my thirteen year old self was concerned, the most beautiful piece of cinema that I had ever consumed.

I devoured that first scene where Ryan and Rachel are at the fair. Maybe you remember it — he asks her to go out with him, and she says no. So he jumps onto the Ferris wheel and dangles from the rail, risking his life to ask her again: “Will you go out with me?”

She keeps refusing until he drops one hand, the camera zooms in on his red, blotchy fingers slipping from the rail. Terrified, she finally shouts, “Okay, fine! I want to go out with you!”

He smirks, grabs the rail, and says, “Fine, fine, we’ll go out.”

It was as if someone had plucked the perfect meet-cute from my mind and splashed it onto the screen. He didn’t just want her — he needed her. And as a young girl, I couldn’t imagine a more validating kind of love.

Then came the montage: Noah and Allie dancing in the middle of the street, smearing ice cream on each other’s faces, fighting in his old truck, swinging from a rope into the pond. I was mesmerized by Rachel McAdams. I thought she was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. I loved her dresses, her red lips, her peachy blush, and the way her soft brown curls framed her face.

When Noah and Allie’s infamous sex scene came on, my mom stood in front of the TV to block Madeline and I from seeing it. I suppose she didn’t want a call from Madeline’s mom: “Why the heck did you let my daughter watch this?”

Even though we couldn’t see what was happening, we knew. My imagination filled in the gaps.

When the scene ended, our eyes stayed glued to the screen until the final moment, when Noah and Allie lie together in the hospital bed. My mom cried. She never cried during movies, but she cried during this one.

Seeing The Notebook that summer left a massive impression on me. From that point on, I watched it any chance I got. Somehow, I got my hands on the DVD and started watching it after school, on lazy Saturday mornings with Eggo waffles, or late at night when I had nothing else to do. I memorized every scene, every line, every outfit. I knew the rhythm of that movie the way you know the route home from work: every street sign, every turn, every building, every second it takes to get from here to there.

Eventually, I got my hands on the book and read it cover to cover. When that infamous sex scene came up, I read that too, devoured it. And because I didn’t know what to do with all of that information at that age, I decided to pass it around to all of my friends to read. They loved it just as much as I did. I’m pretty sure I got in trouble for that one, being that we all went to a christian school and whatnot.

But The Notebook didn’t just stay on the screen or in print. It had seeped into my expectations, my self-perception, and my sense of what was possible in the world.

By high school, I wasn’t just looking for a relationship — I was auditioning for my own Ryan Gosling. I wanted someone to look at me like Noah looked at Allie. I figured if Hollywood could turn their story into a movie for the whole world to see, then it had to be possible. Right?

I die thinking about this, but there was one time I was instant messaging on AIM with a boy in middle school. He said something to me — I don’t remember what — and in response, I told him, “You’re dumb.” But I didn’t really mean he was dumb. I was just imagining that scene in The Notebook when Allie says the same thing to Noah, and he replies, “I can be that.”

I wanted that scene to play out in real life! But of course, this middle school boy hadn’t read the script. I think he said something like, “No I’m not, I’m actually really smart.” And I remember being disappointed that he hadn’t played along, he hadn’t said, “I can be that.” That was my first real taste of life not quite panning out like the movies.

As I got older, I became more disillusioned with the idea of “movie love.” Evidence piled up to suggest that it just wasn’t real. Rejection after rejection, heartache after heartache. But like a good addict, that didn’t stop me from trying.

Hollywood had infiltrated me. I thought that love was only significant if it was dramatic — and that I was only worthy of it if I was beautiful enough to inspire it. So if I could just be beautiful, play my cards right, then one of the boys might see me the way Noah saw Allie. And if I failed, if no one saw me or pursued me, it wasn’t just disappointing — it was crushing.

Being wanted by men meant everything to me. I didn’t think to ask why at the time, I just knew it felt important. Looking back now, I can smile at how much weight I placed on those moments with those boys. Boys who barely gave me the time of day, became the center of my universe. It’s a story so many of us live, isn’t it? Their affection was the ultimate indicator of my value as a person. If I was wanted, I mattered. If I wasn’t, I didn’t.

I suppose I’m probably long overdue to write something about the role the media plays in setting unrealistic beauty standards, or how it upholds the idea that women are better off passive — waiting to be pursued, as though their significance depends on being chosen.

But what hit me the most as I watched The Notebook all these years later was actually much simpler. I found myself smiling at all the same scenes I had loved as a girl. I admired the same outfits, loved the same lines. But as the film ended and my plane had landed, I noticed something had changed.

The feelings that came up in me were different this time.

Where they once felt gnawing, an almost compulsive urge to act the movie out in my real life, there was now a softer, subtler appreciation for the film — as just a film. Something nice to watch, but nothing more than a temporary escape from the monotony of the plane ride.

I am not so naive as to think that the girl who once clung to that film like a blueprint for living is completely gone. Even though I’m married now, she’s still there. She still wants to feel beautiful. She still wants to be wanted in that larger-than-life way.

I guess the difference now is in the noticing. Just noticing when those longings arise. I don’t spot them all the time, but when I do, I now have the foresight to ask, Why? And then I try to wait — long enough to hear my heart’s reply.