My Notebook

So tonight, after 7 years of intention, I finally sat down and watched "The Notebook". Since 2004 I have heard every woman, gay man and many straight men in fact, gush about this fantastic movie. It was indeed one of those movies that I had heard so much about but I feared watching in case the reality of the story, plot and acting was in fact disappointing. Well let me say this... It was not disappointing.
It was a poignant tale of the endurance and power of love. The love that this couple shared was as powerful as the lives they lived and the air they breathed.  It was beautiful, it was emotionally crippling and it was the kind of story that makes you stop, think and be thankful.  I was clearly taken by their love and found myself crying and shouting at the TV at the same time. Often the telltale sign of a great movie.
The notebook was a beautiful tale about how love can last from one life into the next but there is also a secondary story being told.
I found it ironic that for 7 years I did not ever bother to watch this movie and then, a week after I beginning blogging I sit down and watch one of the most beautiful movies ever and it was written about the power of writing your thoughts. When you put your thoughts and feelings into a letter or into print they become eternal. They last forever. They never die. The entire movie was a reflection of the past. A peek through the aging eyes of an beautiful couple; into a life that was far off in the distant past yet on the tips of their tongues. How quickly life fades into twilight and how we are, in the end, nothing but bystanders of our own history. Whether we chose to share our history with the present and future is up to us.
Our stories will never be known unless we tell them. If we do not record our thoughts and dreams then they have no chance to every come true. If we can allow our children to peek into our eyes and see the people that we once were, and who we want to become, we are giving them a gift that is as valuable as life itself. We are giving them our hopes, our dreams and our endless love. Our love in its truest form. Our dreams become theirs and in turn become endless.
If I could open a book and read and understand the power of the love that brought me into this world I would take that as the greatest gift I could get.
Watching that movie tonight validated this blog for me. It made me realize that by writing, expressing and sharing my thoughts, I am in turn empowering myself and those who will follow me.
My words are my thoughts and feelings and they are read by many people these days. Some laugh, some cry and no doubt some disagree with me entirely, but the one thing that every reader takes away from this is the same. Everyone takes away a piece of me, a memory of their own, and a little bit of love.
I am writing my own notebook on this page and one day, many years from now long after my last breath, my grandkids and great grandkids will look at the pictures and read the words and the loves, laughs and life of the man who helped bring them all into this world. Indeed that is worth it all in the end.
So, two thumbs up for the notebook.
I cried, I laughed and I loved.
The story of my life...