Chasing Shadows

Marriage is not for the faint of heart. Isabella “Izzie” Jenkins is within striking distance of her 25th anniversary to Wyatt ‘Y’ Jenkins when she decides to forgo that particular honor and recalibrate her life to find out who she’s become, who she is and what she really wants. Y is blindsided - falling into a deep, lonely depression - having had no idea Izzie was so unhappy that she felt her only recourse was to leave their marriage? “And that’s just the problem” says an aggrieved Izzie. Izzie sets out with her sister, Annalise (a type ‘A’ yoga instructor) by ignominiously getting her wedding ring sawed o� in a low rent pawn shop. Following this release, Izzie leans into newfound freedom believing Annalise will be joining her on her quest for self-discovery. Annalise demurs and insists that Izzie go it alone. She doesn’t fully agree with Izzie that the fault was one-sided and tells her to find her own way. Y looks for solace in the company of his long-widowed father, Rob. Rob lives a relatively quiet life with his adult daughter from a short-lived second marriage, Petra. Rob also feels compelled to tell his son that he doesn’t see the dissolution of Y’s marriage as a one-sided event - to which Y takes o�ense. Petra has an unmatched sense of self and emerges from her outside shed/apartment to dress her brother down for his own lack of self-awareness and selfishness. As both Izzie and Y begin their separate lives, each sees vivid visions of the other in their daily interactions. Is this real or a manifestation of loss and guilt? Izzie is uncertain and seeks out medical advice - believing it must be a brain tumor or injury. A disconsolate Y sees Izzie as he tries to pleasure himself in his car, outside of their house. When a horrified ‘imagined-Izzie’ chastises him to undertake the action in the privacy of the house, he o�ers that it “would just feel that much lonelier there.” While Izzie embraces her new life challenges like her newly-acquired RV/mobile home, Y struggles. His careful planning for their 25th Anniversary party included seeking the input of his young college students - who now see him as diminished and lost. One of his students, Chloe, is engaged to be married herself, and has hung on every detail of his party - seeing Y and Izzie as a future extension of her own union. Y doubles down and works to become a changed man - engaging in the world, spending time with his father and sister, and visiting Izzie’s mother who is bedridden with dementia. Y believes this is the change that Izzie wants but when he finally listens to Izzie, he comes to understand that while that change was important, it has come too late to save their marriage. All Izzie wants now is for him to be a better man for himself. Izzie makes new friends and is intoxicated by the wild variety of it all - but realizes that her own loneliness lives inside her and was perhaps less influenced by Y than she had imagined. As Y prepares to finally say goodbye to Izzie’s mother and extricate himself fully from Izzie’s life, he unwittingly triggers a memory in the corners of her mind and she ‘wakes’ from her dementia in a way that brings her back to Izzie and Annalise. Happy to have been the catalyst for this, Y finally understands that the best way he can love Izzie is to let her go. Rob continues his lunch dates with his former daughter-in-law, and at one such meeting, he gently illustrates to Izzie that while some aspects of marriage can feel like a thousand paper cuts, others can be nearly invisible acts of kindness that underscore what deep, abiding love means. Izzie begins to understand that her numbness to Y’s perceived indi�erence may have inadvertently made her blind to his kindnesses as well. As Y prepares to travel to Italy as part of an exchange program for the college, he runs into Izzie at a sandwich shop they used to frequent together. All enmity forgotten, they elect to share a table and catch up on each other’s lives. Here - in this moment - each takes the time to listen, see who they have become, and welcome the many illuminated possibilities the future holds... and to share their pickles. Do they live happily ever after? That’s up to them. And you.