Post Number Eighteen

It's A Wonderful Life

My whole family knows that I am a sucker for sappy sentimental holiday movies.  They have lost a little of their emotional grip on me over the years, but I can still work up a respectable sob over the likes of It's A Wonderful Life.  That particular movie has actually found a renewed appreciation in my life.  I watched it last year just before Christmas and found much more substance than I remembered from earlier viewings.

George Bailey (Jimmy Stewart) is a man of high expectations and dreams.  Those expectations and dreams are combined with a strong sense of responsibility.  The result is a conflict of the spirit that leads to his undervaluing of his life and his over stating of the problems he must face.  George is a dreamer and a fixer.  That is a combination certain to strain the spirit.  In the end George comes to his senses and finds joy in the love he has shared in life.  He is set free from both his dreams and his sense of responsibility and finds a renewed appreciation for the reality of the moment and the love it contains.

I may not watch It's a Wonderful Life this year.  I am feeling too close to George Bailey at the moment.  Terry and I have dreams and high expectations for our future.  We want to go places and do things.  But at the moment there is an illness to fix and a new reality we must learn to live with.  I am not contemplating jumping off a bridge, and I do not need a Hollywood angel to help me find my way.  I just need time to appreciate the love that is already ours.  Maybe I will watch the movie again next year.