Ok, I have a somewhat lame personality, I’ll admit it. When I am stressed out I retreat into my favorite books. This is the first time, however, that I re-read love stories. Probably because I never loved anyone like I love Brian, or rather I never expected to be with anyone for a lifetime like I did with Brian. Anyway. I’ve been re-reading Romeo & Juliet, by William Shakespeare. It is a really good story, and I’ve often thought it was wasted on my youth the first time I read it, in high school. I have always found it interesting that in formal critques that I have read little is made of Juliet’s mother, how very young she is as well. When she was telling Juliet about Paris, the guy they want her to marry, she told her that when she was her age she was already a mother! So since Juliet is barely 14, her mom is only 28.

It was especially funny reading it again after seeing the movie version with Leonardo Dicaprio and Clare Danes. I was visualizing the scenes as I saw them in the movie. My favorite character in the story both before and after seeing the movie was Mercutio. Whoever did an excellent job portraying him in the movie. I think that Mercutio is one of the most flesh-out people in the book, poor thing.

The love between Romeo and Juliet is so strong, but so fool-hardy it’s tragic. The tradegy is not so much that they died, but that their love didn’t stand a chance anyway. Would they really have been left in peace by their families, allowed to love, and be in love? Had Tybalt not killed Mercutio, he probably would have killed Romeo, or Romeo him.

My favorite part is when Romeo went back to Juliet’s house after the party that he and his crew crashed, and he sees her on the balcony talking to herself about him. He’s like, She speaks. Speak again, bright angel…oh that gets me everytime. To have a man enraptured at your words. Oh, young, oh foolish Romeo. Poor Juliet.

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