JOAN’S BLOG, MON/TUE, DECEMBER 22/23, 2008- SAY YES!
This is only the second time since I launched this website that I have written a blog about a movie. (The other wasThe Bucket List). However, after the blog I wrote on Thursday, December 18 questioning who I am without dementia in my life, Jim Carrey’s new movie – Yes Man seemed to speak directly to me.
The movie is about a bland, average guy, who has shut himself off from life after a divorce. He has a boring job as a junior bank loan office; he has become a reclusive couch potato who refuses all invitations from friends and ignores their phone calls. He attends a seminar on learning to say YES to everything. Once he gets into it, he finds that saying yes, instead of no, opens him up to all sorts of interesting people, activities, and adventures.
The movie has been universally panned by every critic as one-dimensional, superficial, artificial, contrived, and bland. Well now, you must wonder what is wrong with my taste, since I loved ti. And what could someone who voluntarily shuts themselves off from society have to do with an Alzheimer spouse who loses their identity and adventure for life INVOLUNTARILY?
I must have just been ready to hear the movie’s “superficial, artificial, and contrived” message. I had been questioning who I am now in the midst of this Alzheimer’s journey, and who I will be when it is over. While watching this movie, I was thinking – “Yes!”. Maybe there will be a time when I will say yes to riding on the back of a motorcycle again  (Didn’t think I ever did that, did you? Well, I did. Before I met Sid.) “Yes!” Maybe I will not PLAN a vacation, and just go to wherever the is going. “Yes!” Maybe I will try bungee jumping . (Well, maybe not.) Maybe I will find a different me. Maybe I will incorporate all of my experiences and abilities into a new me. I don’t know. I only know that fate brought me to that movie Saturday night because I needed to hear its message.

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