Groundhog Day

Tuesday is Groundhog Day. And whenever I think about it, the music starts: "I've Got You, Babe."

I know — the sound track in my head is evidence that I have probably seen the movie, Groundhog Day, too many times. I first wrote this column many years ago, before the 1993 Bill Murray movie was considered a "classic." I guess that means I could also be considered classic, if not classy.

This Groundhog Day, after almost exactly one year of what seems like the same news each and every day (most of it not-so-awesome), it seems particularly fitting to revisit this film and the lessons we can learn from it.

For those who have somehow missed the plot of this movie, a jaded newscaster, played by Murray, goes to Punxatawney, PA, to cover the Official Groundhog Story. His predictably negative reaction to this assignment is quite possibly what influences the entire turn of events that follows.

While there, he has what must have been (up until this year) the world's record of consecutive bad days. Each night he goes to bed thinking how much he messed up that day, and figuring that tomorrow has to be better. Each morning, however, he wakes up at the same time and hears the same song on the radio — "I've Got You, Babe," — and the announcer starts in with the same news he's heard the day before. He walks out the door and runs into the same old high school acquaintance. Each day, he makes the same stupid mistakes over … and over ... until finally, he realizes he is doomed to repeat Groundhog Day until he gets it right.

Now there's a fantasy for you. Wouldn't it be great if we all could repeat our bad days until we got them right? What an opportunity. How long might it take us? Would we ever get it right? Probably in a way we do end up re-playing those days, if only in our heads. We are always second-guessing ourselves, especially in these long winter days of pandemic. It’s so easy to muse, “what if I'd done it differently?”

Starting over can be frightening, though. I can think of plenty of bad days I would not wish to repeat. The days with embarrassing moments, heartbreaks, and words I wish I hadn’t said. Yet, I can call them to mind all too vividly at a moment’s notice. I relive them, re-think them, and repeat them — probably worse than if I'd woken up to “I’ve Got You, Babe” that morning on the radio. It seems no matter how hard we try to do things differently a second (or third) time, they tend to turn out the same way.

Patterns of behavior are ingrained like the weather. We mere mortals tend to repeat our mistakes, and only by an extreme act of will can we divert our deeply-entrenched habits and actions. If I had the chance to repeat a given day of my life, would I end up doing any better? Or would I be like the hapless groundhog, awakened from a winter’s slumber and just groggily going through the motions? Would I move through the day on auto pilot and just make the same mistakes I made originally?

We can only hope to find a way to redeem ourselves and come out wiser for our experiences. Maybe the beauty of this movie’s message to us is the idea that we can make the changes, and we can end up getting it right, after all, and move on from here.

Especially in 2021. Here's to the good days to come!

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by Marsha Chartrand

Marsha Johnson Chartrand, a founder, writer, and copy editor with the Manchester Mirror, is a 50-year resident of Manchester. She has a long history of volunteer and community involvement.