This post is an entry in the Mystery Topic Challenge currently finishing up at Blog Explosion. You can find more information HERE. Please be sure to read all the other great articles by clicking on that link! If you want to participate in future challenges, please visit the official new home of The Mystery Topic Challenge HERE.
As the winner of the first challenge, Romi chose our next topic which was: “If your life were like Bill Murray’s in Groundhog Day (where he lives one day over and over), which day would you want to re-live forever, and why?”
At first I thought this might be a pretty easy challenge topic to write about, but the longer I’ve had to ponder it, the less appealing it is. Not the challenge, the prospect of having to live one day in my life over and over again.
I’ve had days where there have been very special moments, but those days have had other moments I wouldn’t care to face day after day. It would be hell.
Then, there are a couple of days that were perfect but I wouldn’t want to re-live those again and again, because that would tarnish such a lovely memory. Badly. Again, it would be hell.
If I were stuck in the constantly rewinding loop of one day I would not even have death as an escape. I think I’ve had nightmares like this and I’ve been very grateful for being able to wake from them.
So, if my life were like Bill Murray’s, I wouldn’t be very happy. I doubt that I would cope as well as he did. However, as I was discussing this with my husband, he reminded me of something we both saw in Bill Murray’s characters’ eyes when he finally broke the cycle; as much as he was happy to be living again, there was a weariness to him. Think of it – all those people have known him for 24 hours or less. If he spent a year or more re-living Groundhog’s Day think of all the memories of those people he’d have… and none of them shared by others. I cannot fathom how that might feel.
In conclusion, I can’t honestly answer this. I don’t want to have to live any day of my life over and over again. A visit back in time is all right, but never would I wish to be caught in an endless loop in which there is no escape.
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Political Friends: Read Post
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8 Responses to “If your life were like Bill Murray’s”
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Interesting thoughts! You gave me an idea for a redux post.
I think you have a very good point here. The voting is going to be pretty difficult this time.
A woman close to my own heart (although mine is cold and icy where yours is warm and mushy). I love this post, because I agree with your thinking. I’m arrogant enough to decide what I like depending on whether it’s what I would have written. Don’t act surprised.
I don’t know if this is a fantasy memory, or a genuine one, but I seem to remember reading/hearing this idea that after death, and before the next incarnation, we review our lives to try and learn the lessons we have still to learn from the life that has just ended. At first, so it’s said, we are happy to be free of all the stress and struggle of life on Earth. Then, gradually, it begins to pull on us, until we can’t bear to remain outside Earth, and we are reborn here.
There are two interesting elements here: first, the inner division that I guess one must feel between the desire to learn – hence the need to re-visit the difficult, painful stuff – and the pain of that re-living – like you say, Jayne, how many times can you stand to go back? The second element is the idea that you start as a bystander and, perhaps through that continual viewing and reviewing, (of the happy stuff?) you end up with an unbearable nostalgia – why? Because life ‘down’ here is more intense?
Somewhere in all this must be a good subject for a writing challenge, maybe?
That description of Bill Murray in the end is so key; I think that says it all…great post! :-)
I loved that movie and on a similar note that Adam Sandler/Drew Barrymore movie 50 First Dates where she forgets her life every night before she wakes up each morning.
There is a mix in both feelings. Waking up to the same nightmare and not being able to move on. Or moving on and forgetting such special memories that you’d want to cherish.
I’m glad I’m not stuck in either scenario.
I see your point. I’d definitely want there to be an off switch of some sort in the deal before I started my journey of endless loops. But as long as I had that option, I’d certainly want to give it a try.
I understand exactly everything you’ve written. You’ve just explained why this was a difficult topic for me to write about. I honestly can’t imagine anyone wanting to relive one day over and over again forever. Just thinking about what one would never experience is heartbreaking to me.