30 First Dates

While we were at OHSU for Jordan's brain surgery a month ago we watched this awful Adam Sandler movie called Just Go With It. I tolerated it because it had Jennifer Anniston in it (Is she ever going to age?) and the drugs from the hospital helped Jordan tolerate it.

Growing up I was always a Happy Gilmore and Billy Madison guy. Adolescent humor wrapped in an easy to follow plot with one-liners that have stood the test of time. Whats not to like? Unfortunately, The Adam Sandler franchise has been in a steady decline since Waterboy. However, this blog has neither the time or space for a proper debate on Adam Sandler's acting career.

I do want to touch on 50 First Dates (right in the middle of that steady decline) with Sandler and Drew Barrymore though. Barrymore's character wakes up every morning with short term memory loss. She is sort of stuck in time and all of her friends/family help keep her there by playing into it. Sandler comes along, falls in love, figures out how to overcome her amnesia, yadda yadda, happy ending...

Recently Jordan and I added 30 of her Radiation appointments to our calendar. It was intimidating to look at a calendar that suddenly had a daily reminder of what we are being faced with. This sat with me for a bit. Thinking about it more allowed all the little stresses that have been building to team up and be overwhelming. So I had a bad day.

I woke up the next morning thinking about the calendar and 50 First Dates. Fortunately, I wasn't suffering from short term memory loss like Barrymore. I realized that instead of hoping to forget my bad days I could do something far more powerful. I could acknowledge that I had a bad day, embrace the day I had in front of me and treat it as a "first date". A chance to buy into this process, learn from my bad days, embrace the special things that happen and acknowledge that waking up each day is a gift.

Brack