Five years ago, home sick from work, I watched Groundhog Day on Groundhog Day. My marriage had begun the long slide to over, though I didn't know it yet. I had forgiven my husband, determined that I would stay with him, and convinced that this would all be a memory someday, even though it had been three months and no significant change had taken place yet. But it would.
And, as Bill Murray turned on to the railroad tracks, he said something that stuck in my head for years. "You make choices, and you live with them." It became my mantra. Every time something went poorly, every time my husband failed in that role, I thought, "You make choices, and you live with them."
I have watched Groundhog Day every single Groundhog Day since. This year, I heard the quote with different ears. I had forgotten its origin, because I hadn't even thought it myself for a while, and instantly thought, "But, this is when he thinks nothing he does matters. The whole point of this movie is that by the end of it, he's learned how to make a positive difference in the lives of basically every single person in Punxsutawney. Phil literally doesn't have to live with his choices in his situation, all he has to do is work on himself."
Oh.
I read today that Bill Murray thought the movie should be a psychological drama and fell out with Harold Ramis for years when he made it a comedy. Oddly, I think this is the reason the movie works. Phil Conners is definitely in a psychological drama. Everyone around him is in a comedy that has very little to do with his own personal situation. That's exactly how it works in real life, too.
It continues to surprise me how long its taken me to figure out how bad my marriage was.
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