It’s A Wonderful Life
Dec/080
It’s A Wonderful Life is my favorite movie OF ALL TIME. This isn’t hyperbole at all, It’s A Wonderful Life rocks my fucking socks off. It’s the first movie I ever cried to. It’s the first movie I ever watched 15 times in one day (back in the awesome days when every single channel showed it around Christmas before stupid NBC got exclusivity, fuck exclusivity). It solidified my life long time travel crush on Donna Reed that began with The Donna Reed Show. (What was up with that show, by the way? Twin cousins, how the fuck is that possible? Their dad had to be banging both sisters. No two cousins look THAT much alike. People often think my cousin and I are brothers, but we look absolutely nothing alike. He’s gay with an afro. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that.) Wait, I just realized I’m thinking of The Patty Duke show. Point stands.) This is the movie that made Jimmy Stewart my favorite actor of all time. It’s outrageous how good this movie is. It’s narrated by ANGELS that are depicted by little stars, it has no right being this good. I grew up loving this movie and now I love it even more than that and here’s why. I am George Bailey.
Or at least I relate to him in a lot of ways. When I was growing up the one thing I wanted to do was get out of my hometown and do something big. Go to Hollywood. Write a screenplay. Work in film. Work in a baseball front office. Be the kind of guy that they talk about in your hometown. “You know Vince Morales? The director? Yeah, he’s from here. He used to serve me fresh baked Cousins Subs.” That was me. I moved to Seattle because I always thought Seattle was a place where things happened. The only thing that “happened” was I got dumped by my girlfriend and I began a lifelong love affair with the Mariners and Seahawks. So I guess it wasn’t all bad. Time went on and things just never happened. On and on, nothing. Now I’m 27 and I have a son. Making the plunge and moving to LA trying to break into film is just not going to happen. I only see my son four days a month and I am not giving THAT up to move. Some things are more important. As 
time has gone on I’ve learned to accept my life for what it is and re-adjust my goals. I don’t care about being known anymore, I care about having a good life and family. I care about providing for my son. My big dreams are gone and that’s kind of depressing when I think about it. Not so depressing that I go on a bridge, but there have been some pretty trying times. The girl I consider the love of my life told me she hated me and wants to punch me in the face. I got cheeked. My son knows like 5 or 6 words and he uses one of them to call someone else “dada”, not exactly a great feeling (sidenote: he calls me that too, but still.) I don’t know about suicide, but there are times when running away and leaving it all behind looks pretty freaking appealing. In the end I could never do that. I’m a good guy, I pride myself on being a good guy. I like to help people and affect their lives in a positive way. I like to think that if I were ever to get in trouble that all my friends would rally around to help me because I have helped them in the past. As a matter of fact if I ever got in that kind of trouble, I know I could count on the people around me because they love me. And what’s not to love?
I’m not the guy that I grew up wanting to be and that’s okay with me. I know that I have a wonderful life. Hell, I have a wonderful fucking life. I love this movie because it puts me in perspective. There’s a saying about being so deep in the forest you can’t see the trees and that’s how I am about the good things in life. Their all right there, sometimes you just have to notice them.
