Take my Oscar, please :)

I am not a writer, I use pronouns too much, and identify the object of my prepositions too little. Still, I try. Sometimes I try because one of the greatest things about blogging is that it sometimes offers you an opportunity to do something very cathartic. It allows you to write out your feelings about personal 'epiphanies' and also allows you to go back and refresh your understanding of the spirit and ideals of that epihpany. Of course, those are mostly personal feelings, so clearly blogs also can be a reflection of narcissism –this post is likely a bit of that, but I ask for your forgiveness for it.

So, I am not a writer...I am, if anything, a glorified problem-solver and/or jack-of-all trades. This has made me valuable because I get many things done, and if I can say with humility, often much more so than most. The consequence of getting so much done is my job is frequently stressful. This past week was one of the worst I’ve had. While the pay is excellent, the effort level is extraordinary. On Friday night I found myself wondering why I’d ever taken the job, and realized I’d done so for good and bad reasons. The good of course was it paid the bills, the bad, it paid so well I could afford things I didn’t need, but have missed the things I do need. The stress of it has often turned me into a grouch; I snap at my wife, I miss my children’s successes and hurts, and I find myself struggling to be the man I would rather be. I am too often concerned with the material world, and too little seeking simply to be kind, funny, or supportive.

On Friday night I watched a movie I had been avoiding watching. It was called, “The Bucket List.” As I expected it was difficult to watch, and I am often a wimp about such things, namely confronting the feelings I know such movies will engender. It was a movie about two terminally-ill men trying to squeeze into a few weeks many of the things in life they’d wished desperately to have experienced, but of course, it was really about grasping the meaning of their lives – and most especially, finding joy in their families, both those immediately around them and those they’d failed to appreciate. As I suspected it might, it made me question the way in which I act, the direction of my life. There was a particularly poignant moment where Morgan Freedman asked Jack Nicholson if he knew the two questions which the Ancient Egyptians had to answer to get into heaven. The first being, “Have you experienced joy in your life,” and the second, “Have you brought joy to the lives of others?” I sat and thought about both, and felt I could say “yes” to the first, but only, “I hope so” to the second – when the movie was over, I was left feeling that I wanted to be sure that I did so, more succinctly, that I this week I turned 45, and I decided that at 45 I was going to try to be sure I would not worry about the answer to that question at 65 (or 75). I also decided that I was not the person, the happy and kind person I want to be. Whether I can change that will be a work in progress.

I watched another movie on Saturday night called, “Julie and Julia.” It was, quite simply, one of the best movies I have seen in years. It was utterly charming. Meryll Streep played a delightful, warm, irrepressible, and playful Julia Child in a way which few other actresses have every played a role – she simply was Julia Child. This movie was about writing (and preparing food from) the book Child took a decade to write. Well on its face it was cooking, but in truth, it was about a love of life, and especially, the love in a marriage between Child and her husband of almost 50 years, Paul Child. It was also juxtaposed against Julie Powell, a 2002 office worker who spent a year preparing all of Child's recipes from that same book, and in so doing, like Child, discovering herself and redefining her life and marriage. She was cute, often adorable, but the essence of the movie was about the determination of both women to have a life with purpose. In their case it was cooking, but through it, they found joy. Much of that search was defined and bolstered by the men in their lives. These men stood by them at every downward turn. In a funny irony to the old saying that ‘behind every successful man there is a good woman’, they were the ‘man behind the successful woman.’ Each simply relished the wonderful person they married, even with the piques of temper or flights of whimsy. They saw thru all of it to the funny, kind, charming, meaningful and decent person they had been fortunate enough to be able to spend their lives with.

I walked out of this movie feeling what I have not felt very often, or often enough, recently. I walked out remembering why I fell in love, and how lucky I am to have such a fine person standing by me. I walked out wanting to be like Paul Child, wanting to be joyful, and most importantly, wanting to bring joy into the lives of those around me. Oh sure, the Paul Child of this movie was a caricature, but he reflected an ideal, an essence, I want to capture and hope to reflect. All in all, both movies spoke about the need to have purpose, but not just any purpose, a purpose to enjoy life, to be warm, and to find joy.

There was a time in my life that epiphanies like those I experienced this weekend were the norm, because of the skill of an artful Priest, who wove deeply meaningful truths into his sermons. I recognize, once again, as his sermons often helped me to that I am surrounded by marvelously, wonderfully decent people - both friends and family, and really nothing I can own brings me the same sense of happiness as simply being with them. For it seems as if I was offered such a sermon this weekend – and I offer it my own Oscar – for, God willing, I shall be putting my personal grouch back in the can, and need it no longer.