Jolted

Since the birth of The Boy, I have not been able to stomach violent, horror, or suspense movies. It's like I'm already in the trenches warding off bad vibes and trying to create a loving, harmonious, and trusting world for The Boy to grow up in. I don't need reminders of how bad life can get, exposed to me as if I didn't know about it.

If I choose to escape my chaotic world of social, moral and family responsibilities to a manufactured world of celluloid fantasy, I want that world to be orderly, clean and happy. I want it to be a great escape of pleasure and inspiration, not a borrowing of horrific sensationalism for the bored of mind.

Since my mommy-brain, my attention span has also shrunk, so much so that I can hardly sit through a movie or read a book. And I am one of those people who used to buy a festival pass and take my vacation in September during the Toronto International Film Festival. No more since The Boy. Now I hardly watch movies. During his younger years, if I watched a movie or read a book, it was usually a Boy flick or kid lit.

So for the first time in a long time this weekend, The Man and I found ourselves alone on a Saturday night. He suggested a movie. I said Brad Pitt. We went to see Babel. I had no idea what the movie was about, except that Brad is in it. I got a shocking dose of the horrific. The movie was well made enough, with beautiful cinematography. But the story was contrived and cruel. It's one of those movies I can no longer stomach and there I was sitting through it like I was on a bad date.

Then when we got home, we received a call from my brother-in-law that my mother-in-law had gone into Emergency. We fled down to the hospital. MIL has emphysema and a history of hospitalization due to respiratory ailments. The Man was mighty worried and commandeered the care of his mother.

In the end, the respirologist determined that she had an asthma attack, this time triggered by cat allergy. Though with each respiratory attack and her recovery taking longer each time, he did not consider her in immediate danger. MIL has spent two nights now in the hospital so far. More tests are being done to eliminate pulmonary complications.

While The Man is again concerned about MIL's long-term care, I watch the hospital episode unfold with unease, reliving my own horror and whispering to each of his brothers not to leave their mother's side at all while she's in this hospital and not to depend on the nurses to know how to care for her comfort.

This was the same Emergency my grandmother went into a few years ago when she had a bout of low blood sugar due to Diabetes. While in Emergency, she fell and broke her hip going to the washroom, with a nurse by her side. The nurse said after she's sure it was nothing despite Granny's complaint of severe pain and that one of her legs was suddenly longer than the other. Sis demanded an X-ray, which confirmed a fractured hip, necessitating hip surgery on my 87-year-old grandmother.

The slowness of MIL's lung recovery while in hospital? That triggers a different set of memories of my father, who never recovered from his lung failure.

All this is to say, see why I don't like watching intense movies of human indignity? I feel like I live with enough of it, always on edge, braced for the worst to happen.

Maybe I just stick to watching pre-schooler cartoons from now on.