the post with no name

I just finished watching the film Wild Hogs: a theme of the movie is "how did this become my life?" which is a conversation I had two separate times this week with two very different people. Funny how we end up at the same place, though, wondering how this has become our life.

One person is not living a full and rich life. The other person has made some changes in career and is on a personal upswing from that. And I am somewhere in the middle. I jokingly said during one of the aforementioned conversations that this isn't the life I ordered... but as the conversation went on I did say that I spend time every day reflecting on all the positives and blessings in my life, that I do not have that sinking feeling of misery that I had even two short years ago... (which is directly related to a threat of violence toward me at school and is another post for another day)

What I thought was funniest in this movie is the karaoke scene at the chili festival (none of this is spoiler)... And for as enjoyable as the movie is, it isn't my life--isn't a reflection of the lives of anyone I know. No, our midlife awakenings (I refuse to call it crisis) is more of a sense of disappointment when we realize that we have been encouraging students to set lofty goals and live up to them when we ourselves have forgotten to keep at it. Not to say that I haven't reached my goals because I have actually achieved all but one item on my life list that I created at age 18 and a senior in high school. If anything, I need to set more goals.

So, why is that tied into the karaoke scene? Because during that scene, the actor is portraying the life fulfilled--the singer is so into the songs and the feeling of the songs as only an overweight, middle-age white male can feel it. And that is the scene that most spoke to me.

What am I really saying? Eh, nothing too philosophical. Just rambling about a movie I watched that reminded me of some intense conversations I had this week...wrapping up the idea that I enjoy taking time every single day to remember how lucky I am to be living the life I'm living. I make the decisions--and whenever I feel overwhelmed with the responsibility of making every single decision all day every day, I remember that I CAN choose what I do, when I do it, with whom I do it--if I so choose and so forth. I take for granted the ability to choose and that most of my choices will only reflect on me.

Wild Hogs. The actors looked like they were having a blast. Too bad the women were only window dressing and not real characters. Light, enjoyable, some funny stuff...not too much crude humor (even thought there were some negative homosexual references and stereotypes) and not too much crude language. Awesome soundtrack.