Love is the reason. Period.

So I have finally mustered up the courage to watch A Beautiful Mind tonight at Alvina's house. The movie came out quite a few years ago and though I knew the gist of the storyline, I hadn't taken the initiative to watch it despite always referring to the movie, when explaining schizophrenia, my brother's condition, to others. In light of the reality that I may be leaving my fair city for graduate school, I'm trying to work through my list of mental, emotional and spiritual 'baggage' (you know those things that make you cringe when you think about them?), and tonight was one hit.

I liked the movie a lot, and even more so since it was based on the real-life story of John Nash. Although my brother is neither a mathematical genius nor Nobel Peace prize winner, my family can relate to the many of the characteristics and struggles depicted in the movie: the difficulty in getting the patient to realize they have a problem and to treatment, the side effects of treatment, the shame, and the feelings of anger, guilt and sadness to them, to God, to ourselves. Thank God that my brother was diagnosed in the 1990s and not the 1950s when the shock treatment was in its heyday, but the 'hit and miss' of chemicals in little capsules, remains.

I liked how the movie didn't have a 'happy ending' so to speak. At the end, even at the reception of the prize, John Nash wasn't able to get rid of the three people hallucinations. But I really like this line that John says, "I still see things that are not here. I just choose not to acknowledge them. Like a diet of the mind, I just choose not to indulge certain appetites; like my appetite for patterns; perhaps my appetite to imagine and to dream." Despite medical advances, there is no cure for schizophrenia, like many other mental illnesses and illnesses in general. There are just some things that are beyond the best of mankind, that one has to submit and accept. A person has to choose to live with them despite it, and fight. The people around have to, too. As I watched the movie, I had a mix of pity and admiration for John's wife, Alicia. To choose to love, simply because love is the reason even when there is no reciprocation. That's love. Have you ever thought about what it means "to live till death do us part". Can you imagine your other falling into some ill state, would you quit, nobody would blame you...except maybe yourself. There have been days when I definitely wanted to quit my family. Probably days where I did, momentarily at least.

I think circumstances change quickly. I was thinking, jokingly, in my mind recently how much "easier" it would be for my current decision-making process, if I ended up liking a fellow public servant type while I was in Ottawa. To marry a PS-er would seem so perfect and 'easy'. But life isn't like that, and more importantly, those are only circumstances. I think it's when you make the decision to tough it out when circumstances are difficult, that matters, that makes the difference. That's love. I think there's sacrifice. Maybe that's why the world is so attracted to sacrificial love.here have been rough rides with my family in terms of my bro, that I am now beginning to work through and understand, about ten years after they happened. There are rough waves right now in my current relationship, things that are just for the moment, outside both of our power. Sometimes life is just hard, or down right crappy. Sometimes, like today, and many days past, like Alicia, I just need to believe that something extraordinary is possible in order to get by.