16. The Girl Who Used to Be Me: Loving Myself Now & Becoming My Own Shirley Valentine

A love letter from Sarah Gloss to "Shirley Valentine" (1989)

Shirley Valentine, mon amour,

I love you, and like any healthy relationship, you love me back. Dare I say, you were the one to love me first! If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. If you teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime. And Shirley Valentine, mon amour, your goal has been to teach me how to love myself, and in doing so, making sure I’m loved for a lifetime.

I’ve watched both of my parents go through significant self-love journeys in the wake of getting divorced, but that makes sense for them as 58 year-olds. I already expected to be securely on my self-love journey at that point in my life regardless of what happens to me. Shirley’s self-love journey is somewhat similar to my parents. She’s feeling old but not yet elderly, she has lost touch with feeling beautiful, her kids are grown up and starting their own lives, and she’s in a marriage that’s clearly not working for her. Her need for a self-love apotheosis seems immediate and warranted, unlike my own young and developing life.

However, you make it clear that I need to love myself NOW. I can’t wait until I’m middle aged to truly love all parts of myself. By the time Shirley realizes she doesn’t love herself, she’s forced to face the time she’s wasted not loving herself.

That specific scene, late in act one, in which she comes to this realization while crying in the telephone booth, broke my heart. The song that plays during this scene, The Girl Who Used To Be Me, struck such an emotional chord to the point that I felt deeply unsettled. It’s no surprise this song was written by legendary composer of A Chorus Line, Marvin Hamlisch. The end of Shirley’s monologue in which she laments that she misses her younger self, her unmarried self in which she was Shirley Valentine, is punctuated by the final line of the song: “I’d like the chance to be the girl who used to be me.”

Well, I’m young now, so here I am… but will I miss myself later? Will my later self forget and abandon my current dreams? What about my childhood self? Where did she go? I’m not that same girl, and there are some ways in which I would not be living up to her standards. In fact, I’ve tried to run from so many old quirks and cringey mannerisms that I have come to be ashamed of my younger self for having. But is that disrespectful to her, and who she was as a person? Shirley too confronts the self-pity and shame she was conditioned to adopt at an early age. It is at this moment she seeks to reclaim her life and makes the radical decision to go to Mykonos. Radical because this is something she’s always wanted to do, but never imagined herself actually doing— something she’s choosing to do without any obligation attached— something that isn’t for the benefit of her husband or children, or even her friend Jane who invited her— something that would make herself, and only herself, happy.

In teaching me how to love myself, Shirley Valentine, you make no conditions or promises. You don’t suggest that I’ll find the love I need in chasing that dream job, or getting a makeover, or finding an even hotter guy to love me. (Though I do enjoy Shirley’s romp with Tim Conti— aka Albert Einstein in Oppenheimer.) Your message was that I’m worth loving simply for existing. Thank you for the love, mon amour: love from you, and love from me because of your teachings.

Ciao,
Sarah

About Sarah

Sarah Gloss, a recent graduate of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, is a producer in the Film & Television industry. She currently does production and administrative work for a children’s animation company. Projects she’s currently producing include SAFE HAVEN (Dir. Joey Karlik), in post production, and NATALIE WOOD: THE STORY OF NATASHA, a play in pre-production written by Maggie Ek.

Her artistic taste is influenced by her background in musical theatre, loving works that visually astound and commit to theatricality. She has a special soft spot for stories made for and by women, driven by her reverence towards feminism and women’s history. On an average day, you can find her walking her pug Toby or reading about the Roman Republic in sunny central Los Angeles.