When Jo March said “but I’m so lonely” it hit me so hard. I was already crying a little but I just started full on sobbing. It was so raw and real and relatable and exactly the struggle of being a woman who wants to be fierce and strong and independent and have her own life where she is appreciated for all that she is but still so longing to be loved.
It is such a real thing in my life and those of countless women. To think, I do not need a man (or a woman). To think, I am my own person and I am valuable in my own right. But I long to be valued. Not because I have no value inherently, but because I want someone to recognize who I am and what I have to offer. I want to love and be loved and have companionship and warmth and care and family (maybe even one of my own) and just goddamn love in my life because I deserve it and we all deserve it. Yes I’m strong. Yes I am more than love. But that doesn’t mean I should live without love. I just want to be appreciated outside the merits of marriage. I want to be who I am and do what I do and be a whole complex human person who earns and gives love every day because that IS humanity.
It meant so much to me to hear it and it was so close to home. It echoes back to when meg says “just because my dreams are different than yours doesn’t mean they’re unimportant”. Jo says it differently, but it is a call back tot his idea that there are many dreams to have in life, and while career and independence are allowed and encouraged to be high on the list, that doesn’t mean love can’t be high up too. We all want to be loved, and we shouldn’t have to choose.
Thank you Greta Gerwig for writing that whole monologue and that specific line, and thank you Saiorse Ronan for performing that scene so well.
