Days of My Life

There’s this classic scene from Grey’s Anatomy where Meredith decides she wants to fight for Derek’s love after he decides to go back to his wife. She tells him why she loves him and why they should be together, and finally, she pleads with him, “Choose me, love ME.”

For non-Grey’s fans, he eventually does end up back with Meredith who is the love of his life. He and his wife were estranged when he met Meredith. His wife had cheated with his best friend. Their relationship was in Divorce Lane, but the wife showed up in his new town to try and save their marriage. He felt like he owed it to her to try, but it was over the moment he caught them cheating, really.

I often think of that episode in two ways: this is either wildly romantic or highly pathetic. (The scene was a tear jerker if I’ve ever seen one.) I haven’t very often considered a middle ground, but I wonder how men viewing this same scene would react. Would a man find this romantic and flattering or pathetic and pitiful? Would it depend on who was doing the asking and how he felt about her? I don’t know.

I wonder if in this moment Meredith was choosing Derek or choosing herself. Think of the Tamia song, “Me.” The title may be wrong, but she talks about choosing herself when her man hasn’t treated her right. She concludes that if she has to choose between loving herself and him, she’ll choose herself. Who was Meredith choosing? Even though Derrick had never told her that he was married and that bomb, quite literally, dropped in her lap at work, she decided that she really loved him, and that was worth fighting for. Did her fighting in any way diminish her self-respect, or was she really looking out for self by trying to hold on to the first real love she’d ever found? These questions aren’t rhetorical. I’m really not sure, and I don’t know why that scene still plagues me when we’re about to begin Season 4. (That scene was Season 1.)

I think that scene may bother me because I have a no begging rule. My scenario is different from Derek and Meredith’s, but I once had an ex- complain that our relationship didn’t survive because I didn’t fight for him after he told me he’d cheated. Yeah, so, unh huh, I looked at him like he was foolish for real. I didn’t see anything worth fighting for. I saw a way out of a bad situation because we weren’t legally married. I could still get out, and he wasn’t a bad brother–he just made poor choices. Shoot, he could’ve fought for me, but I digress.

My point with the ex- is that I don’t beg people to be where they don’t want to be or do what they don’t want to do. For everyone who won’t, there’s someone who will. The flip side of that, though, is that had my ex- ever, just one time at all, come back to me and was really sorry and gave me the Meredith speech, I would’ve gone back to him and worked it out. He, for some incomprehensible reason, was waiting on me to do that to him. Nope, not ever. I don’t even know if I’m capable. Stubborn as hell I am.

However, I tend to think that most people would be receptive to pleading if it came from someone for whom they genuinely cared. Even when I can’t do what he asks, I want to cave in when I hear my father plead with me. Sometimes all we need is a gentle appeal from someone we love, but I wonder if, like me, most would be too proud to beg. Even when begging might lead to the greatest love of one’s life.