Remember When Sally Field Said, ‘You Like Me!’?
Age and maturity have taught me to appreciate that remark
Forty years after Sally Fields said that, those words have a different meaning for me.
After a difficult year that included the loss of a long-time partner and moving for the second time in four years, I had many reasons to appreciate the support I got from the close friends I’d made in that four-year period.
In an unguarded moment, I thought, “They really like me.” That statement made me remember the famous words Sally Field spoke when she received her second Oscar, in 1984, for Places in the Heart.
“I can’t deny the fact that you like me, right now, you like me!”
When I heard her say that, did I honor for her honesty and vulnerability?
I did not.
I Cringed.
How could she expose herself that way?
The idea of ever doing anything like that filled me with horror. She might as well have put on a “Kick Me” sign because that’s what people were going to do. They would trash her.
She did get ridiculed for the statement, and I was sorry, but the reaction confirmed my feeling that her level of openness was dangerous.
