This quote has been shuffling around my brain since my daughter and I excitedly consumed the first episode of Grey's Anatomy. ***Spoiler alert***
Three society-type women who have been friends since they were little girls end up in the ER when their limo crashes. Coincidentally, their husbands, who were in a different limo because they wanted to smoke cigars, were in an even more serious accident.
The women are played to perfection with a balance between hysteria, sadness and incredulity. I predict an Emmy nod for Bernadette Peters (Sarabeth) and probably Kathy Baker (Anna). 
And anyone who watched the show might be shocked to realize that the women who lost her memory was played by Mariette Hartley (Betty). Yes, Mariette Hartley, perky substitute co-host of the Today show.
As it turns out, Anna has been having an affair with Sarabeth's husband for several months. As Anna is feeling judged by Meredith and the staff, she tells Meredith the following:
When you spend your life with someone and you have kids together, you think it'll always be this amazing, and this wonderful. You think that you'll always feel that kind of love and I do, I do love Phil. I just... well little pieces of you get chipped away by another person and then you shave little pieces of yourself away so you'll fit together and then one day you look up and you don't even know who you are.
Wow...how incredibly insightful and yes (attention, overused blog word approaching), poignant. I don't really want to say how I interpreted it or how it made me feel, I want to open up a discussion to do that. So please comment.
Oh...and guess what? I got to send a CORRECTION TO IMDB!!!! This is how the quote appeared in the IMDB entry for this episode:
No, no, no. It was not Betty who said it. Betty's major quotes were "What am I doing here?" "Am I in the hospital?" and "What happened?" since she was the one who lost her memory. I think they should send me an IMDB coffee cup or something!
Di
You're too young to remember but Mariette Hartley used to be in a series of commercials for something or other with James Garner, and some people thought they were actually married. I wondered what had happened to her.
Posted by: Nicholas | September 28, 2008 at 08:34 PM
Nicholas,
(I believe I speak for Di too when I say this): It's sweet that you think we're too young to remember that commercial, but I can easily recall it! It was for Poloroid.
As for the comment...hmnmm. I thought it was incredibly sad, for her to think of her life with her husband as chipped away. I think that I know myself better than I ever have, and instead of losing pieces of myself, I feel I've gained them in my life with Doug, so I am more than I was, not less.
Posted by: amy | September 29, 2008 at 07:54 AM
I love when Nicholas thinks we're too young for stuff. "Young" is not an adjective I hear much relating to me.
I think I have moments where I feel as you do, about Doug. And times when I feel like I'm not even the person he fell in love with anymore.
Posted by: Di | September 29, 2008 at 07:58 AM
I agree with Amy (not chipped away, but a happier, more mature person). Married at 20, 2 months away from our 50th, and each year we get amazingly closer and enjoy each other more. All of this is attributal to my loving husband and daughters.
Posted by: Mom | September 30, 2008 at 01:43 PM
If you have moments when you feel as I do about Doug, then you and I may have more in common with that episode of Grey's than I thought!
:)
Posted by: amy | September 30, 2008 at 03:08 PM
After two marriages in which chipping away at myself wasn't enough for a peaceful life -- I had to hack off huge chunks -- I am now fully put back together and in this marriage the chipping away has been minimal. Just the odd sanding down here and there.
Di, you'll always be young to me!
Posted by: Nicholas | September 30, 2008 at 04:52 PM