My life just seems so filled with disappointments ─ at times it is crushing.
Early last evening I tuned in a 2014 Christmas movie via the YouTube 'app' that I have downloaded into our T9 Android 8.1 TV Box ─ the movie was titled Eve's Christmas. It took me quite awhile to get into it, despite some high praise in the YouTube comments.
Some of the immersion difficulty for me were the unwanted foreign subtitles. Also, lead actress Elisa Donovan ─ whom I am not at all familiar with ─ did not appeal to me initially. It wasn't until her character slipped back into her past eight years earlier that the actress portraying her started to become more attractive.
I was not expecting to discover that the actress portraying her best friend was Erin Karpluk. The name was also unfamiliar to me, but I did soon enough recognize her as having had the lead role in the old T.V. series Being Erica, which I used to enjoy. I thought Erin was pretty darned 'hot' for want of a more polite term, and thus my follow of the T.V. series.
That series actually debuted five years after the movie came out, so she had physically 'matured' a wee bit by then. However, in the movie, her character and Elisa Donovan's character were supposed to have been best friends since school, but in reality there are at least eight years of difference in the actresses' ages.
I grew to enjoy the movie, and did have my emotions affected at times. However, I will not be adding it to the list that I plan to rewatch come Christmastime if my younger brother brings his girlfriend Bev here for what is coming to be our annual two-day Christmas movie binge.
I'm the only one who knows how to operate the Android TV Box, so the movie selections are up to me unless someone has a suggestion or request.
The reason I decided against adding the movie is because the plot finish was too unrealistic and simplistic.
I can handle the plot scenario of someone returning to their past to relive their life leading up to some key decision that originally redirected them into a course that would result in an unfulfilling or unhappy future. And in this movie, Elisa Donovan's character ─ after nearly making the same choice that she had originally done ─ did the right thing to assure personal happiness.
To wit, she chose to go through with her marriage to a young man she had also known since school; and by doing so, she thereby avoided the regret that plagued her in the future for having jilted him, and then immediately thereafter moving away from home and shunning her family because of what she had done.
I didn't mind that she made the choice to go ahead with her marriage to her sweetheart.
What I did mind was that when she then returned to her future self with full memory of having gone back to her past to make that right choice and become a happily married woman, a brand new eight years that she had never lived and therefore could not remember had elapsed...but all was somehow perfectly well and this was a fairy tale ending?
What of everyone she had come to know over the original eight years when she was an advertising executive ─ a life choice that now never happened?
And what of everyone who would have been in her jilted fiancé's life over the original eight years? She had drunkenly phoned him just before she returned to her younger life, but a woman had answered; and then a man's voice (her former fiancé?) also answered, possibly from another line in the house or apartment, so our heroine panicked and hung up.
Was he maybe married to someone else? And did he have any kids?
The whole thing was preposterous that a Guardian Angel came along and obliterated everything that had gone on in her and her fiancé's lives over the original eight years. The Godly power that it would have taken to achieve something like that is ─ I truly think ─ even outside of God's ability.
To utterly erase eight years of actual events that had already happened and replace them with an entirely different series of events?
Who was Elisa Donovan's character that God would even consider doing any such incredible feat? Was her human potential of far greater worth than yours or mine that God would exercise such a phenomenal miracle for no other apparent reason than to make her (selfishly) happy with her life?
I'm 70 years old and struggling with suicide despite praying all of my life since boyhood ─ I cannot say that I have ever experienced a single small miracle that was not simply a fortuitous coincidence. And I have certainly never experienced a life-changing major miracle that I have prayed for.
But Elisa Donovan's character only has to drunkenly wish upon a bright star, and her whole life is blessedly changed forever? She didn't even pray to God!
But Elisa Donovan's character only has to drunkenly wish upon a bright star, and her whole life is blessedly changed forever? She didn't even pray to God!
No, the movie was too ridiculous ─ I have no interest in rewatching it, even though I did enjoy it quite a lot.
I could have gone to bed quite early last evening, but I was possessed with a resurgence of my specific iniquitous addiction that kept me up until...gosh, was it around 1:00 a.m.? Whatever the case, gone was any hope of rising early into the a.m. to have a productive start to my day.
Nevertheless, one thing that I did want to do this morning was go to Canadian Tire to see if I could purchase some replacement outdoor Christmas light bulbs ─ I need two different sizes for the larger bulbs (as opposed to the mini-lights).
I had seen online yesterday that Canadian Tire ─ the outlet (Google map) in Whalley, and which is about 1½ miles from where I live ─ opened at 8:00 a.m., so I wanted to get away early and arrive there at opening before the day had become too busy.
I do not drive, so I would be walking.
As well, I had the monthly expenses reconciliation cheque to deposit that my brother gave me last week ─ I would make the deposit in an outdoor ATM at the Coast Capital Savings building over by the King George SkyTrain Station approximately half way to Canadian Tire.
I left here in plenty of time. I even performed a couple of sets of pull-ups on the gymnastics-style rings at an elementary school playground, and still arrived at Canadian Tire a few minutes early. So I just loitered about in the almost empty parking lot.
Around 8:00 a.m., an older man in a car who had also been waiting got out of his vehicle and walked over to the doors to peer into the building. Then he stepped back and leaned over to read something on the door while pointing at it.
After that, he returned to his car, and drove off.
Fearing the worst, I also went to the store's doors. And lo! A sign posted thereon indicated that although the store opened at 8:00 a.m. six days a week, on Sunday it did not open until 9:00 a.m.
Bloody hell! There was no way that I could kill a freakin' hour!
So I began my hike back home. However, I did stop in at the Walmart at Surrey Place / Central City ─ the store opens at 7:00 a.m. daily without question. But alas, I found that they only seemed to carry replacement mini-lights.
And home I came, empty-handed.
This latest disappointment sapped me of the will to withstand my addiction. With it finally satisfied, I would at least be able to enjoy some days of peace from it before the 'need' begins to strongly present itself once more.
I had a good nap afterward, returning to bed just after my younger brother arrived home ─ he had spent last night at the home of his girlfriend Bev.
It is now a little after 4:00 p.m. as I type these words.
I want to make a return hike to Canadian Tire ─ it closes at 7:00 p.m., but I need to get back to bed and seek some further restoration for the venture.
And so I must close and publish this post.
First, however, I want to post the following 27-second video slideshow that Google Photos automatically created today ─ or at least, Google Photos only today notified me about it.
The video slideshow was titled "They Grow Up So Fast" and features images of my wife's nephew Daniel. Some of the photos used in the slideshow were taken in Thailand at my wife's home village back in 2016, and others were taken there and in Rome last year. Daniel and his mother ─ my wife's sister ─ basically live in Italy, so my wife had travelled there to visit that country for the first and probably last time.
Anyway, here's the short video slideshow:
And that will do it for today.
No comments:
Post a Comment