How Far You’ve Come
1 IF. Imaginary Friends. A new movie titled “IF” will land this summer starring Ryan Reynolds in which his character and that of a teenage girl can see ALL of the imaginary friends of EVERYONE around them. Including, and this is the hook, the imaginary friends that have been left behind. It sounds really promising; I’m looking forward to seeing it.
A tiny little bit of reading today gave some insight into why John Krasinski, the actor and director, chose to make the movie. Did you know anyone with an imaginary friend or two? Or did you, perhaps, have one of your own? Krasinski does not appear to have had his own, but his curiosity led him to discover that imaginary friends do, indeed, befriend youngsters of all ages who are blessed with active imaginations to begin with. But his research led to the discovery that many, perhaps most of those imaginary friends are there to provide their physical friends respite from some type of trauma. Might be physical or emotional, but having discovered this, Krasinski shifted the tone of the move from vaudeville to virtue.
Years ago I “met” the imaginary friends of someone who is very, very close to me. I sensed at the time that this someone was hurting, a sense that was confirmed some time after the imaginary friends seemed to have taken their leave. Had I known that they’d likely faded into the background because they’d done their job, helped my person and allow them to carry on, well, I’d have sought them out to say thank you.
Perhaps they will join me at the movies this summer.
2 The D’s. Dementia, delirium, and decrepitude. These are the realities of the 3-D life we witness each time we visit my Mom. This is the kind of 3-D no one wants. Dementia is the disease in which some progressive trauma is inflicted on the brain and results in physical changes that alter brain function. The bitter irony is that Mom is in this Dimension of D’s for the same thing that sent Dad there, chronic vascular disease.
Delirium is the brain’s response to these traumas, the creation of a narrative to explain any event that is the least bit confusing or new. Delirium can be as tiny as a bit of confabulation or as intense as seeing your 9-years deceased husband interviewed on TV during an NCAA finals. Decrepitude, as we know, is the end-result of dis-use of our physical body resulting in the inability to perform the functional movements of daily life. Mom’s efforts at any type of preventative behavior that might stave off decrepitude ended when my Dad came home from the hospital.
Delirium may or may not be permanent; it is, after all, an adaptive reaction which, although negative, demonstrates the plasticity of the brain. The best one can do with Dementia is hope for a full stop, hope for the cessation of whatever insults are hurled at the brain. There is little one can do over a lifetime, at least little that we know, to steel oneself against the ravages of Dementia and Delirium.
But Decrepitude, ah now that’s a different story altogether. The battle against decrepitude starts as soon as you start to move in a purposeful, planned manner to train your body. To build strength, power, and endurance. These may actually be the magic elixir that pushes against Dementia and Delirium, but we know for certain that if we are more able physically we will be better able to persevere. Imagine how much more is the psychic trauma of Delirium if you cannot raise yourself up, cannot walk away. It’s frightening to watch when the realization that you are unable to help yourself becomes the only thing that you know is real.
Perhaps delirium exists to shield us from that realization. Perhaps delirium is simply an unnamed imaginary friend, sitting next to someone in need of respite.
3 Journey.”Mothers stay behind so that their children can look back and see how far they’ve come.” Ruth, the creator of “Barbie”.
What does my Mom see when she looks ahead toward her four children? Does she, or sadly more to our present circumstances, did she also look ahead to see if her 10 grandchildren have gone on yet further? It’s a bit different from pride, I think. Not exactly “is she proud” so much as if she has noticed how far each of us, and each of our children have come. This is a tricky question–it’s quite likely to always be a tricky question–because Mom, like every mother yet born and having given birth, had very clear ideas not only about how far each of us would go but also how we would get there. I once wrote an essay about this that might have been titled GPS or something to that effect.
For my Mom it wasn’t simply that you reached the expected destination, it was necessary that in doing so you took the exact route that she’d mapped our for you to get there.
How about us, then? We four children and our spouses. When we look back do we see how far we’ve come, or do we look back, take a look left and right, and measure whether or not we’ve come as far as Mom expected us to come? What defines, or will come to define our notion of our own success? It’s really just another version of the classic challenge of whether we are strong enough to own our own goals outside of anyone else’s external goals held on our behalf. Of course it’s also a bit more than “just” because it’s your Mom–OUR Mom–not just some external someone with an expectation.
For what it’s worth, when I look back it seems to me that I’ve come as far as I’d planned to, by and large. Without a single goal toward which to apply monomaniacal effort, the “length” of my journey was always going to require more of a “miles traveled” analysis than a simple “miles from origin”. I have placed varying degrees of emphasis and importance on not just one but several markers that could define a journey. Decisions that favor one domain cannot help but have an adverse effect on another. Spending the extra day at the conference might mean to miss being on the sideline for the conference championship game. Likewise, flying out early from the event to make sure to be there for a holiday with extended family might mean passing on dinner with the CEO who will decide between you and the other finalist for a gig that you really want.
It’s astonishing to finish watching a movie like “Barbie” and spend the next day wondering how far I’ve come. I look back at each step I’ve taken and try to remember how far I’ve actually traveled, not just how far I’ve come from where I started. Does Mom do the same? In the end, who’s to say?
By either measure we all really have come so very, very far.
This entry was posted on Sunday, May 19th, 2024 at 3:53 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.