Forty years is a very long time. It's also a very long time to have a relationship, any kind of relationship, especially in today's super-mobile world. But I have had a special, private, one-of-a-kind relationship for just that long, with an amazing man. He is one of the most amazing men I have never met. Yes, I meant to say never met.
You see, this man is Rocky Balboa. For those of you who do not know who Rocky is...well, never mind. You simply can skip reading this post. For everyone else? I know you are now hooked and will continue to read so I have done my job.
My formative years were spent in South Jersey, living among my East Coast Brethren. As a half-Italian who had never fully embraced her heritage...or even knew it existed...this was the ideal place to spend ages 9 through 14. It seems everyone I knew was Italian, the full-blooded kind. All of this was new to me, even though, like I said, I was half-Italian. But the part of me that was did not get to have a name like, say, Balboa, because the part of me that was....was my mom's side. So while my friends got to have names like Mattia and Mesiano and Romano, I had the name of Kiker.
But I digress.
In 1976, right before my dad pulled the rug out from under my feet and declared we were moving from Jersey to Colorado (what in the world was a Colorado and why did we have to move THERE?) a very special movie entitled Rocky was released. It took place in my backyard...well, in Philly, but it was close enough. I had gone on field trips there, I loved the food, I related to every aspect of the place...and so I had to see this movie.
It was one of those films that has a lasting impact, but you have no idea just how much until the years unwind, and you grow and change and move away.
I fell in love with the movie. But, more than that, I fell in love with the Rocky character. Even then, I felt he was the perfect balance of macho and sensitive, sweet and tough, strong yet vulnerable. My ideal man. To this day, he remains that.
What started as a young girl's memories of the place she left behind have endured as a middle-aged woman's lifeline. Rocky has always been there. Though I moved to Colorado, more movies were made since I have lived here...one after the other after the other. Some have been better than others, but I have always loved the character...and what he represents.
To me, he is so much more than a character in a film series. To me he represents my youth and what I lost, then found again. He brings hope to the hopeless and makes us all believe we can go the distance and that we are not just another loser from the neighborhood.
I write all of this, not only because it is therapeutic, but because last night I saw "Creed," the latest Rocky movie. I thought it was fantastic. Of course I knew I would cry and did so about midway through the movie. But at the end, I sobbed. Not necessarily because it was sad but because, once again, I was reminded...
This time it was a little over 6 years ago on a warm, late August day. My heart had recently been broken, but it was about to be healed. You see, on my long bucket list was this THING: I wanted to run up the Rocky steps, otherwise known as the Philadelphia Art Museum steps, the same steps that Rocky runs up in the original movie, hands raised above his head in triumph. I wanted that, too.
So a good friend of mine made that dream happen. He even took pictures of my journey up those stairs. I was shocked at just how easy it was to run up those stairs, but Rocky had made it look like such a challenge. I wondered, after I did it, how many others before me did the very same thing, inspired by a person I had been inspired by. I wonder how many other things in life we think are so difficult until we face them and then we realize they are not nearly as hard as we think they are. This was the part of the movie that made me sob; it was a scene where an elderly Rocky stood on those very steps with his mentee, overlooking downtown Philly, once again struggling to reach the top of those stairs.
At any rate, regardless of the deep psychological mumbo jumbo, I am grateful to Rocky, for all the memories, for all the joy and happiness and tears he has brought into my life. And if I can be grateful about something like this, I can be grateful for just about anything.
Rocky and Me
