My wife and I watched a movie when it came out in 1989 - 1990 called Parenthood staring Steve Martin. The story revolves around four adult siblings, there individual families and the challenges of life as a parent. Each siblings lot in life is individual and the situation that they find themselves trying to survive in the movie are distinctly different. I was in a much different parental position back then (I can't remember if son #1 was born yet but if he wasn't he was on his way) compared with today and my ability to relate to the main character was difficult. Now 21 years later I can clearly relate to both the main character, Steve Martin and his parents who have multiple kids with different troubles but in the end all they hope for is that each of them will find happiness.
I've seen the movie recently so I've had an opportunity to reconnect to the characters and to think about the movies messaging. The most illuminating message for me really comes to a head at the end of the movie when the Steve Martin character, Gil, is watching his young daughter in a school play and his even younger son climbs on stage to protect his sister, when at a point in the play he feels she is threatened and then all hell breaks loose. Gil starts to panic as his son starts to tear apart the stage set and suddenly you hear the sound of a Roller Coaster clicking away as if climbing the track towards the precipice. Eventually the Roller Coaster sound reaches the top, crests, and then begins it's sudden drop to the bottom! As it falls and twists you see Gil rolling and shifting in his seat as if he were on the Roller Coaster. The look on Gil's face as he watches this disaster unfold in front of him is one of shear terror. He glances to his wife seated next to him and sees that she is laughing and enjoying the ride.
The message that is very clear to me now and that has so much more meaning for me now than 21 years ago is that life is a Roller Coaster and you can either choose to sit back and enjoy the ride or not, but you can't control it. I believe people are predisposed to either enjoy the ride or to fret over every detail and problem that life throws at you. In the movie, Gil was not capable of just accepting the way things are. He second guessed every decision he made; and he was constantly worried. Gil's wife on the other hand was enjoying the ride in every was possible. To her, life was about the ride and the experience that the ride provided.
Now here is my problem, my wife and I are both Gil's! We have a tendency to lose sleep over the challenges presented to us in our lives and we react poorly to tough situations. Don't get me wrong, the last two years of our lives together have been no picnic. Two years ago we both were in a great spot with health and our weight loss journey; our oldest son was in college; son #2 was in High School, our daughter was in private school and they were all thriving; our relationship was stronger than ever; I enjoyed my job and our financial situation was very solid.
Today both sons are unemployed; #1 has no aspirations after failing out of college twice, was fired from his last job because he took money for drugs, and is in drug and alcohol rehab; #2 drove my wife's car into the ground and the money that he saved to buy himself a car, we had to use to pay for a lawyer to get him out of trouble, so he has no way to get back and forth to anywhere including school or a job. I took a promotion a year and a half ago that I don't like the new job because it puts me on the road several days a week (overnight) and because of business challenges driven by the economy, I actually have earned less in the last two years. My wife's business has dropped significantly as well, as a result of the economy, so it is hard for us to stay on top of the family debt, and my wife and I rarely spend time together.
With all that and much more this Roller Coaster ride lately has felt more like a death ride spinning out of control and has not been much fun. But I know that I control my own happiness and that only I can allow myself to get down about all this. I have a lot to be thankful for including my health and the health of my family, a loving wife, opportunity, and people around me who love me.
There are so many people out there who have much tougher challenges than I do and many of them seem to be happy. In the grand scheme of things it all amounts to the life equivalency of a hangnail and I know that. But it's my hangnail and sometimes it hurts like hell. I need to work on enjoying the Roller Coaster ride. I know well that if I focus on the bad things, then I will miss the good things!
