I'm happy to report that I spent the evening devouring half of the Pride and Prejudice series from 1995! Once I started, I couldn't stop. Of course, I was also crocheting as I watched. What a perfect evening it was.
Did I swoon over Colin Firth? Yes, I did. He might be the man of my dreams. I fell in love with him as a little girl when I first saw this exact mini-series!
I also have a random memory of begging my father to buy me the DVD box set of the series at Target. It remains on my shelf to this day.
From the moment I saw him, I vowed to watch anything Colin Firth starred in. That included the Bridget Jones films, Love Actually, and Girl with a Pearl Earring.
My ardor for this man was out of control. I think it's the dreamy eyes. He will always be my favorite Mr. Darcy.
On a more serious note, it's quite moving to revisit the mini-series all these years later. Watching it as a girl and now watching it at the age of 37 gives me an aching, nostalgic feeling.
Like most girls, I was full of romantic fantasies and longings. Perhaps I hoped I'd meet a Mr. Darcy myself or that I'd enter the romantic world one day. That day never came.
I understand things now that I could not have understood then. I understand why it's so important for the Bennet sisters to get married and how difficult life could be if you were a single woman. It's still very difficult.
I understand the complexity of desire that the characters feel, the vulnerability of opening yourself to love and rejection.
It will always be amazing to me how we stand here in the 21st century and look back at people who lived hundreds of years ago and we still see ourselves in them. That's that's what makes a work of art truly great—it's about the unchanging, eternal questions of the human condition.
At the heart of everything is love. How we find it, how we lose it, how we express it, how we risk everything for it, how we sustain it once we finally get it, or, conversely, how we live without it if it never comes.
Thankfully, Jane Austen gives us a happy ending for Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy, even if we don't get such a happy ending in our own lives.