Random, Thoughtful Blog

Finally got to see the movie, "The Lovely Bones". Read the book a long time ago, and loved it. So when I heard they were making a movie adaptation, I was excited, but worried about how it would be portrayed on the big screen. Everyone knows that the movie is NEVER as good as the book, so I always worry about how close, or far away, it will be from the book! However, my fears proved groundless. The movie was awesome, just as visionary and beautiful as the book.
After the movie, Buddy and I were talking about it, critiquing and comparing notes, so to say. For those of you who have not yet read the book or seen the movie, it's about a young girl who is living the idyllic life in 1970's American suburbia. When she is fourteen years old, she is kidnapped, and murdered, and her family's life is shattered. Her father, in his sorrow, becomes obsessed with catching her killer, and she tries to help him from a world called "The In-Between". At first, she is just as obsessed as her father is. However, along the way, the realization hits both of them that they need to move on, and let go. She has not moved on to Heaven, because she is tied down by the search for her killer. He has been absent from his family for years. His wife has left him. He has not been there for his two other children. His life is in a shambles. in the end, they both learn that by doing this, they are letting the killer control their lives, and they are able to let go. They let nature take it's course, and everything works out in the end. Beautiful movie, and a very good lesson to be learned at the end.
Buddy and I got to discussing the death of a beloved child. How would we react? How would we deal with it? Would we cling even more closely to our family, each other, or would we push each other away in our grief? As much as we would like to say we would cling to each other, we honestly don't know. Studies have shown that the stress of losing a child is a major blow to a marriage. A lot of marriages don't survive it. Watching this movie, I can see why. One parent is depressed, needs her husband to help her shoulder her grief. The other has become obsessed with righting the wrong that was done to his child. Each of us deals with pain in our own way, and that is the heart of the problem. We do eventually realize that we need to move on, that justice will come in it's own way, in it's own time. Once we do, things start to get better. We heal. We move on. We never forget, but we are able to see past what happened, and remember the good memories. We finally are able to accept that this does the child an extreme dishonor to remember what happened to her, instead of the person she was, and what she meant to you, her family, and everyone else in the world. When we get to that point, the person who did this has no more power over us, and we are free.
Random, I know. But there it is.
P.S. If you have a chance to see this movie, or read this book, please do! I have not done them justice here, and they are definitely worth a look!

The Passing of an Era

I was on my Myspace page this morning when I read some rather shocking news. The frontman for one of my favorite bands passed away, from an apparent heart attack, a little less than a month ago. This band, his vocals in particular, spoke to me, so I was saddened to hear of his death.
This got me to thinking about quite a lot. I was introduced to this band by my ex, Bernie. I had heard of them before I met him, but I had never heard their music or really even taken note of them before. This is one of the few good things I took away from that relationship. An appreciation for a band that I probably would never have heard otherwise. This band had one album go gold, and yet another go platinum, but despite that, they were still a largely underground band from Brooklyn that never really made it to the mainstream.
It got me thinking about the passing of an era. This music spoke to me, on a very personal level, for one era of my life. At the time, I was deeply depressed, and this music spoke to me because it, too, was about life, death, and everything you experience in between. It spoke of depression, because the band had dealt with it too. I listened to it almost exclusively for a very long time. After that relationship ended, I stopped listening to it on a regular basis. I would dust off one of the albums and listen to it occasionally, but for the most, they went unlistened to. That era of my life had passed. The music was still beautiful, but it didn't speak to me anymore. I started a new relationship, with a good man. I got my life back. I got engaged to that man. I married that man.. As with the lead singer of this band, that era has passed.
I will still listen to, and appreciate, this band. I will still mourn the passing of a truly unique musician. But this is the ending of an era, in more ways than one.
RIP, Pete Steele. You will be sorely missed!
1962-2010

A Sign of the Times

Today, Buddy and I stopped at the gas station to fill up the car. As I was sitting there in the car, waiting for Buddy to come out of the gas station, I noticed a group of young men. One of them was a big guy, looked for all the world like that guy in the movie, "The Blind Side". Buddy was taking longer than normal, so I decided to go into the store and see what was taking so long. I walked into the store, saw he was buying three bottles of Mountain Dew. On the way out, he handed one of the bottles to the big guy. The young man thanked him, very politely. Buddy wished him luck, and we drove off. I asked him what was up, and he proceeds to tell me that this young man is homeless, and he was looking for money to get some clothes, so he can look for a job and get back on his feet. Now, I know, it seems very suspicious. I know, a lot of you are probably sitting there, thinking, "Likely story! Probably wanted it for drugs or booze, or the like." Maybe you're right! However, when Buddy told me this story, it clicked. This guy has been wandering this neighborhood since we moved in. Always wearing the same clothes. We sat there, in silence, for a minute. I said to Buddy, "If it were up to me, I would help him out. I wish we had the room to let him stay, even for the night." Buddy then says to me, "I wouldn't allow it. Did that way too many times before, and had way too much stuff stolen because I did." I sat in silence, mulling this over in my mind. Finally, I said "It's too bad people can be so untrustworthy. Because I would love to be able to help every person who needs it." Sign of the times, people, and it isn't a good one! That kid might have been the most honest, trustworthy person I would ever meet. But the sad fact is, we can't trust him, or anyone for that matter. Like our parents used to say, a few bad apples ruined it for the whole bunch. As a result, the only thing I can do is pray for this young man, and ask God to help him. Be sure that I will be doing that before I go to bed tonight.

Figuring It Out

So I just got married a little over a month ago, (I'm sure you've read all about it on my Mom's blog, Life's Funny Like That!), and already, it has begun. I knew, going in, that marriage wasn't gonna be easy. I knew it was a LOT of work. I knew there would be times we would disagree, times where I would look at this man I had chosen to be my Life Partner, and say to myself "what the HELL were you thinking?!?" We manage to work through them all, talk it out, and weather the storms. We have not once gone to bed angry, which is a good thing! There are times, though, that a problem seems so big, it scares me. Times where I wonder, "What if I screw up? What if there comes a storm so big, we can't weather it?"
The scariest time, for me, was not something that happened in my own marriage. Oddly enough, it was someone else's marriage. When Mom talked to me, and told me that she and Tim were going through a rough patch, I was shocked. When she told me she wasn't sure if their marriage would survive this rough patch, I got scared. I looked at her, heard her say this, and was scared for my own marriage. See, for years I looked at Mom and Tim's marriage as an example of something to strive for, what a marriage should be. The so-called "Perfect Marriage", if you will. This was why I had waited so long to take that plunge into marital bliss. I needed to be sure that this was the right man, that I could spend the rest of my life with him and not have to worry about the what-ifs. I finally found that man. I married that man. I was sure that things would be great, as long as I tried to emulate Mom and Tim's marriage. When Mom said this, I thought to myself, "If Mom doesn't know if her marriage will survive this storm, how will mine deal with the storms to come?"
Of course, for anyone that reads my Mom's blog, you know the ending to this story. She and Tim are fine. They weathered the storm, survived the rough patch. In the process, I learned a valuable Life Lesson. No marriage is perfect. Mom told me that storms WILL come, very quickly. They will seem big, at the time. They will take you by surprise, and you WILL wonder if your marriage can survive. What makes a good marriage is NOT how many of these storms come, it's how you, as a couple, deal with them. Because more often than not, these storms will pass just as quickly as they came in. No marriage is perfect, but as long as you have found someone that is worth fighting for, and you fight hard to keep them, it's as close to perfect as it will ever be.