Family Man

David and watched that movie last night, well I watched it and Dave made it home in time to watch the end. Both of us had seen it before so it wasn't like he missed anything. I love the movie although it always makes me cry at the end, Dave enjoys it but the end also upsets him (not that he cries but it makes him angry more than anything).

If you haven't seen the movie it is very much a backwards It's a Wonderful Life (one of my favorite movies and no matter how hard Dave tries to watch it with me he just doesn't care for it). Family Man is the story of a man that lives a wealthy, single life working on Wall street and one Christmas Eve he is given a glimpse of what his life could have been. When he wakes up Christmas morning he is a tire salesman, living in Jersey, married to his college girlfriend with two small children. So he fights this life he does not know at first and by the end of the movie falls in love with what his life could have been only to wake up again to his old life. He then goes to find his old girlfriend and catches her right before she is ready to board her plane moving to France. He convinces her to at least stay the night with him and have a cup of coffee since he has realized he never stopped loving her and was able to have a look at what he gave up. So this is where the movie ends, them having coffee on Christmas Day.

Now Dave and I believe this movie to be sad at the end since although they are having a chance to possibly have a life together now, the life that should have been for them is still gone and will never be. This is what the "family man" in Dave hates about the movie and what makes me ball my eyes out. Although we have talked to some about this movie that believe that now they have taken corrective action to bring themselves back together they CAN have everything that was "lost." I find it an interesting thing to ponder none the less. How many possibilities are truly open to us at all times? I would have to say It's a Wonderful Life puts a more positive and grateful joy in your heart at the end of the movie than Family Man but does not make one ponder the day to day choices we make without a thought about the cause it may have.

I know for myself there has been things that has happened in my life that I wonder if it would have been quite as wonderful if it had happened at a different time. I suppose for Dave and I it is easy for us to believe in a divine timing, I know surprising thinking of Dave taking something so spiritual to heart but he truly does, since we have seen it happen in our lives so many times. We have witnessed blessings in our lives come out of what seemed to be despair at the time. We think often about the events that took place in my life right before I moved home from Las Vegas. That was probably one of the scariest points in my life, having my world turned upside down, being so far from family and being only 20 at the time but had that not happened I am not sure when and if I would have moved back home which would most likely have not resulted in me marrying David. And if he had moved to AZ the year before like he had thought about he certainly would not have been here for me when I returned. That is not just our lives that would have been effected by this but 5 others and who knows how many more. Some may feel it would have changed their lives for the better, what other families might Dave and I have right now? But whether it was "better" or "worse" which is subjective anyway, it would not be ours which will always be worse in our book.

Now sure one could argue that things could have turned out exactly the same but at a later time, maybe even one would think a better time but personally I am glad I do not know the answer to that. Perhaps believing in divine timing gives us an excuse to look at the positive to make ourselves feel better. That ignorance is truly bliss, maybe this is the case. I know that there is a reason things like this only happen in the movies, we will never know what all of our "could have beens" would have been but I choose to believe that I would not, for one minute, change any part of my life even if I did know!