Forever Moving Forward

You wanna hear my rule of thumb when choosing movies to watch? I generally stay away from anything Best Friend Becky likes. Since 1982, this has served me well. With few exceptions, like War Games and maybe The Big Lebowski, we rarely like the same flicks.

I dig on thoughtful choices that are open to interpretation. Becky makes fun of me when I attempt to analyze scenes and dialogue and quirky characters.

Mom rented Evening the other night and I remembered Becky ranting and raving about it so I expected to enjoy five minutes, total, before going to bed early.

But then I enjoyed it. But only a little bit. Does this mean Becky and I are getting similar in our old age? In more ways than one, folks.

Evening is an incredibly corny movie about a dying mother who, in the last few days of her life, starts mumbling about a man she spent five minutes with when she was a young woman. Her daughters remain at her bedside and then they blabber about life's choices themselves and how they are struggling with their own issues as well.

Then the mother dies.

I know. Chick flick horror.

But a part of me wondered about my own ending. Who would I mumble about? It's so easy to say that a person from our past who we hardly know could be a long lost love. Isn't the love of our lives the one who puts up with our nonsense, day in and day out, and sticks around despite morning breath and snide comments? A fantasy is just that - it's not love and it's not what I want to be mumbling about in the last few minutes of my life.

My favorite part of the movie is when the dying woman's best friend says to one of the concerned daughters that death bed mumbling doesn't matter. What matters is that the dying woman raised two daughters and had a life. That's what was real. The rest wasn't nearly as important.

I dug on that the most.

Then QJ went and posted some nonsense about couple's skating songs that brought me back to when I was a kid. Most romantic moments of my youth were spent on the sidelines while my friends couple-skated and had make-out sessions to this song.



I made fun of them, but inside always wondered why no one wanted to hold hands with me. My hair *was* big enough to deserve its own planet and that probably had something to do with my solitude. Although, to be honest, my attitude was always so much bigger and that's what kept most people at bay.

Still does.

Sometimes I catch myself listening to groups like Foreigner and wondering what it'd be like to make out in a car to such songs with the ocean in the background. Alas, I do believe those days are over. Nonetheless, I managed to escape my youth without catching any diseases or low self-esteem.

I just hope I'm not mumbling about any of it on my death bed.

Because apparently it's not what's important anyway.