Perhaps, you would ask, why fear vs. love? Because these two feelings go hand in hand like lovers when it comes to relationships, any kind of relationship, in any kind of world- fictional or non- fictional. And after all, what we see over the TV is not so different from the real life. As they say life imitates art and art imitates life.
Fear and love are powerful feelings, forces that come in different shapes and forms; forces that drive us to fall apart and put ourselves back together. They make us and they break us. Love gives us wings to fly and we fall in love. Fear clips our wings and we are on the way of free falling. The question is who is going to catch us when we fall? Moreover, what if two people freefall at the same time, who is going to catch who? Can love overcome fear? How much love two people need to grow a pair of wings and fly together?
Lets’ get back to Callie Torres and Arizona Robbins, two perfectly imperfect human beings. Two women as different as the day and the night; two women who happened to fall in love with each other and took us on this emotional roller coaster and have been making our heads spin since season 5.
Whether Callie loves Arizona or whether Arizona loves Callie- this should not be questioned. They do love each other, we have witnessed their love season after season, and they have kept coming back to each other. Callie and Arizona show their love in different ways simply because they express themselves differently.
But what creates this huge gap between the two of them?
Fans of the show and especially the Calzona shippers often point the lack of communication between Callie and Arizona. Well, to some extent this is true. But talking sometimes can be overrated and not everything needs to be discussed to death. Also there will always be things that are left unsaid. The problem between Callie and Arizona is how they talk to each other, what they say and the many things they don’t say. It’s more a case of miscommunication between them, many false assumptions and misinterpretations. All this leads to misunderstandings and pointless verbal fights. They pretend everything is okay, try to move on with their life and keep believing that buying a new house, extending the family will solve all of their problems. Problems that have been piling up for years and have turned into a wall between the two of them. So, is the lack of communication the cause of their problems or the effect? Does the lack of communication create this gap? Not exactly. The lack of talking between Callie and Arizona is an effect. The very cause, the root of their problems is fear.
After their first breakup they got together because of fear, one of the reasons. Fear of losing each other, fear that life is too short. From this moment onwards, including the first four episodes of season eleven, this fear has grown into a thick shadow, hanging over Callie and Arizona and both of them keep feeding this monster. As abovementioned, fear has many different shapes and forms. Fear easily translates into insecurities, vulnerabilities, anger, even fear to speak your mind.
Arizona Robbins is a great master of fear disguise; she flashes her smile and hopes her fears won’t come true. Callie, on the other hand goes into full crazy baby or work mode.
Arizona is afraid of losing Callie, in general. She is afraid of commitment, afraid of losing control, afraid of having been resented by dragging Callie with her to Africa; she was afraid of losing Callie when she came back and went all in with the baby and Mark. She had become so insecure that proposed a marriage. After the plane crash, Arizona was afraid of her own darkness, she was afraid that she wasn’t good enough, she was afraid to accept the change. The miscarriage made her even more insecure and vulnerable that led her to adultery and a very meaningless fling with a resident. Right now, she is even afraid of speaking her mind because her marriage is hanging by a thread and the possibility of losing Callie for good is getting very real.
Callie is afraid of losing Arizona, as well. She had to work up the nerve to ask Arizona to move in with her; afraid of being left alone and tried her best to get on that plane to Africa but rather unsuccessfully. Callie was afraid to get back together with Arizona and even to marry her, because of Arizona tendency to bail. After the plane crash Callie was afraid of losing Arizona. She faced a choice- Arizona’s life vs. Arizona’s leg. Her fear turned into guilt and a constant trying to fix Arizona. Arizona’s adultery made Callie vulnerable and full forgiveness was never granted.
The fear became such a big part of their life, that instead of having a nice and quiet discussion who will carry baby No 2, they decided to flip a freaking coin.
Remember the flight of stairs from the previous part. Well, Callie and Arizona need to see that they are climbing the same stairs. Instead of throwing blame in each other’s faces, walking on eggshells and yell, they should figure out a way for this marriage to work. All their fears are slowly suffocating them in the form of loss, guilt, adultery, low self-esteem, and lack of forgiveness, expressed desires and needs. They are together on this journey. That’s why a marriage is called a union between two people. They travel together. This isn’t some kind of race, or marathon or any kind of competition event. On a journey people stop to have a rest, do some sightseeing; get in trouble for the fun of it, they don’t keep track on who bought the tickets or who paid the bills. A journey is supposed to be memorable, no need to plan on things too hard and too far ahead in the future, and sometimes one has to improvise. And when you have a travel buddy, who is as excited and enthusiastic about the trip and is willing to share the ups and downs, well things could be slightly easier.
If you feel Callie and Arizona’s story is recycled, look at your own lives. Don’t they look recycled sometimes? Same or similar situation keeps repeating itself over and over again. Hard times usually provide the toughest and most valuable lessons. If Callie and Arizona were a real- life couple, their marriage would survive. Unfortunately, they are fictional characters; there are a bunch of writers who decide their fate. Hopefully, they will stay true to the characters and regardless of the outcome of the very much discussed upcoming episode five, just remember Callie and Arizona are the angels of hope about love.
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