Post-Movie Marathon Thoughts

If my life were made into a movie, it would have '80's music in its soundtrack.

I saw "Before Sunset" with my parents at the Shang Cineplex today. There were two other couples who looked like senior citizens in the movie house with us. Less than twenty people came to see the 1:20 p.m. showing. I learned that at the next showing, three of my friends watched without planning to bump into each other and they ended up having coffee afterwards. I would have loved to join them, but I was on driver duty. Besides, it's a Sunday - Family Day. I spend time with friends six days a week already.

I think it's great to bump into people we know at unexpected places and to be free to have coffee or tea with them afterwards. In my life-movie I would drive around the city and go on with my day running into good friends at the drug store, the gas station, and even at church. I wouldn't run into the people with whom I would rather not see, of course. I would only be with the people I love to talk to and spend time with. Of course that movie is never going to be made but I like to plan about it sometimes.

My mom didn't like "Before Sunset" as much as my father and I did. The movie revolved around two characters who did not stop talking and it thrilled us to follow their conversations and drink in the nuances in their lines. They could not stop talking about the one night they spent nine years ago, along with religion, politics, and every other topic under the sun. That looked like the perfect relationship to me, with the perfect romantic background - Paris. I love to talk and I love to listen. I can only be with a person who would love to listen to me and who would make so much sense, or make me laugh so hard, that I could spend the rest of my life listening to him. He is already part of my make-believe movie, you bet.

I must have inherited my father's passion for books and movies. A few hours after we got home, I played "50 First Dates" on DVD. This movie is about a girl who impaired her short-term memory and who had her dad, brother, boyfriend, doctor and the rest of her little island creating a comfortable life for her. I enjoyed how Adam Sandler's character made Drew Barrymore fall in love with him all over again every single day. What a totally Hollywood concept.

Upon reflection, I realized the contrast in the two movies. The first one was about all the little details that the lovers could not forget and that made them long for each other all those years that they were apart. Between the two of them, they wrote a book, a song, and two journals about their memorable night. The second movie was about how love could create a memory deeper than what medical science could predict, for the girl might have been incapable of remembering her boyfriend/fiancee/husband but everyday she is able to realize how deeply she has fallen for him, even without her memories. She was able to paint his portrait from a memory that she did not know she had, deep in her heart.

So where is love stored in our brain? I dug into my own memories of love, and chose to close them one by one immediately after.

I'd rather make up my own movie not based on memories, but on dreams. What was it the girl from "Before Sunset" said? Memories are not forever, they change as long as we live to change them. Something like that.

I'm a girl with a good memory, a computer and an Internet connection. Regarding those memories I'd rather forget, I could still change them, with or without the other characters in my life. All I have to do is write....