...quiet, about a lot of things...
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
Another Cliche
I just watched a movie...a very bad movie..that I laughed and cried my way through...shamelessly.
Not a big SNL fan...(of late)...there were whole decades that I did not watch.
This silly stupid movie with Al Franken, made me weep. Stuart Saves His Family pokes fun at every co dependant wretch of a person on the planet. Ahh,these are my people, the dysfunctional.
So much of this movie made me chuckle. Some lines were priceless...like.."My father had lived through the great depression....his mother's."
There is a scene of an intervention going nowhere...and then this movie, this seriously stupid movie did something RARELY done. It left things without the perfect ending. With Stuart babbling on about "that it wasn't perfect,but that was progress, and that's OK" and that "the attitude of gratitude not being just a platitude."
This is both sadly trite, and simply true. How many nights do we tell ourselves what we need to hear, to get through the night.
I've attended a 12 step program, ALANON and never really "worked" that program. I never had a sponsor. I went to meeting only sporadically. But when I needed one, I could always go to a meeting to feel human, and not so alone. Not so alone in the midst of a bunch of strangers. Pretty miraculous.
My family priest sent me to my first meeting. I met him, through my husband, before we married. I was scared, to chat with a priest, informally, but that is was the priest wanted before he would consent to marry us. So I went without Michael, and sat with Father in his office. We talked for about 10 minutes, when he took my hand gently, looked me in the eye, and asked if one of my parents was an alcoholic. I was stunned. He explained that I had apologized at least 5 times since I had sat down to speak with him.
I'm catholic...I thought that was the drill...but he was right about me...so I went.
It was filled with slogans and platitudes and cliches. It was a room filled with people, alike and dislike me, trying to make it through the moment. Trying to come to grips with the fact that their lives were not perfect, and try as hard as they could, they could not fix (fill in the blanks....). It may have been a lot of things, but I didn't care. Any port in a storm. I laughed and cried at those meetings, and welcomed strangers into secrets my best friends didn't know.
In in the end,...it wasn't perfect...but it was progress, and that was OK.It had to be.
Not a big SNL fan...(of late)...there were whole decades that I did not watch.
This silly stupid movie with Al Franken, made me weep. Stuart Saves His Family pokes fun at every co dependant wretch of a person on the planet. Ahh,these are my people, the dysfunctional.
So much of this movie made me chuckle. Some lines were priceless...like.."My father had lived through the great depression....his mother's."
There is a scene of an intervention going nowhere...and then this movie, this seriously stupid movie did something RARELY done. It left things without the perfect ending. With Stuart babbling on about "that it wasn't perfect,but that was progress, and that's OK" and that "the attitude of gratitude not being just a platitude."
This is both sadly trite, and simply true. How many nights do we tell ourselves what we need to hear, to get through the night.
I've attended a 12 step program, ALANON and never really "worked" that program. I never had a sponsor. I went to meeting only sporadically. But when I needed one, I could always go to a meeting to feel human, and not so alone. Not so alone in the midst of a bunch of strangers. Pretty miraculous.
My family priest sent me to my first meeting. I met him, through my husband, before we married. I was scared, to chat with a priest, informally, but that is was the priest wanted before he would consent to marry us. So I went without Michael, and sat with Father in his office. We talked for about 10 minutes, when he took my hand gently, looked me in the eye, and asked if one of my parents was an alcoholic. I was stunned. He explained that I had apologized at least 5 times since I had sat down to speak with him.
I'm catholic...I thought that was the drill...but he was right about me...so I went.
It was filled with slogans and platitudes and cliches. It was a room filled with people, alike and dislike me, trying to make it through the moment. Trying to come to grips with the fact that their lives were not perfect, and try as hard as they could, they could not fix (fill in the blanks....). It may have been a lot of things, but I didn't care. Any port in a storm. I laughed and cried at those meetings, and welcomed strangers into secrets my best friends didn't know.
In in the end,...it wasn't perfect...but it was progress, and that was OK.It had to be.
4 Comments:
Wendy you always write from the heart and I love to read it. Thank you. This post is real and honest and leaves me feeling glad that I know you - even if it's just a little bit - through what you write.
Ah! Come have dinner at my house tonight! We'll watch Finding Neverland and make popcorn!
This post is so true. Life is not perfect but each step you take in the right direction is progress.
Many years ago I attended Alanon--different meetings on different days. I'm also a long time member of a church--have been a member in 3 different denominations. I've often thought that if I were to move to a new community and wanted to feel loved and cared for, I would first look to a 12-step program, not a church.
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