I’m kinda surprised, but then again I don’t know enough about her personal journey. In any case, I found myself relating to her in this interview: Parade Magazine: “Drew Barrymore, America’s perkiest star, reveals The Truth Behind The Smile”:
“Were you ever secure in the fact that someone loved you?”
“No,” she says quietly. “Not yet.”
Barrymore has been married twice and has cut quite a sexual swath through Hollywood with an array of boyfriends. A serial monogamist, she always seems to come to the point at which each affair must end. Could that be because she purposely ended the most formative love of her life, the maternal one, early on?
“I’m going to call my therapist later and talk about this,” she says, trying to joke but then pausing to consider the theory. “No. I don’t have a therapist. But I think I’m going to find one now.”
“Okay. Let’s stay on the couch,” I say. “I know that long-term sobriety is the hardest thing to sustain after someone’s been in rehab. Are you completely sober?”
“No, I’m not,” she admits. “And I don’t claim to be–quite the opposite. I’ve tried to find the balance. I hope it’s balanced.”
“Would you have a child as a single parent?”
“I always thought I would, but everything feels different now,” Barrymore says.
“Are you, in fact, single these days?”
“I don’t know,” she answers. “I’m not anything. Sexual love is secondary to me right now. I’ve spent a lot of time in my life dedicating myself to love or the pursuit of love or the understanding of love. But for the last few years, my life just hasn’t been about that for me. It’s just not about the mother baggage. It’s not about the boy. It’s about something completely different, and it’s very refreshing. I’m trying to understand it and relish it.
“I’ve stopped believing in happy endings,” Barrymore continues. “I’ve started believing in good days. At the end of my movie, there’s honesty. There’s truth. There’s peace. What tomorrow will bring is still in question. There is a joy that’s earned by failure or triumph. All those things add up to teach us, if we are open to it.”