Ending 3: Lover's Leap

In this ending, it seems as if Everett really and truly turned over a new leaf for Mariel. There's nothing like seeing the woman you don't realize you love as much as you do coming home from a date with another guy to make an honest man out of you. (A little jealousy goes a long way, especially when you didn't intend to make someone jealous on purpose!) Mariel explains how she ended up with Everett this way, "Sometimes you just have to jump and hope something or someone will be there to catch you. And if you're lucky, what you find when you land will be the stuff dreams are made of."

By Sherri Rifkin

Hope, luck and dreams. These things all require leaps of faith, especially when it comes to love--probably one of if not the biggest leaps of faith in the human experience. Sometimes I think that after all the analysis, plotting, planning, preparing, questioning, experimenting and even on occasion, scheming, finding and keeping love comes down to hope, luck and dreams.

If--or rather, when--we're lucky, love just comes, on its own schedule and usually by its own terms. We cannot control whether or not we connect with another human being, no matter how much we want or try to. We can attempt to force ourselves to be interested in someone because he fits our checklist or seems like a good catch or is someone we think we should like but none of those scenarios yield an authentic connection. And until we make an authentic connection, we have to be able to dream about one, so we can recognize when it does appear in front of our eyes.

And to be lucky, I think, takes hope, which is essentially a positive attitude that paves the way for luck. In my experience, luck seems to find me more often when I'm feeling upbeat than when I'm stuck in a negative space.

But what's funny about hope, luck and dreams and how they relate to love is that both people have to believe in them at the same time. Mariel even calls it out for Everett by saying, "You're a lucky man." He responds, "Don't I know it." He didn't seem to know it when he was tickling Candy with a feather but now that he does, he is finally able to make a leap of his own...and meet Mariel on her path to love.

Do you think love is a leap of faith?