Reality Bites

There was always a debate in my marketing classes. I would ask my students each year whether the media mimics society or if society mimics the media. It's a tough call. I see both ways but I would say nine times out of ten its the latter.
There have been a few movies that I have seen that punched me in the gut with reality. 'White Oleander' is one...it was one movie I left thinking wow...how could that have seriously got worse. What more could any one person endure. Even that film though eluded to a happy ending. Another movie/book was Nicholas Sparks 'A Walk to Remember' within its portrayal of undying teenage love and devotion was the reality that you can't always love or pray the evil of cancer away.
I feel like typically us regular folks are working towards or looking for what the media has so clearly and repeatedly laid out for us. We measure successes and such along this high lines. Really only few people can ever meet or even get close to that.
My favorite place in the world is New York City. Why? I guess because I spent an entire childhood on a farm admiring its glory through movies and Christmas parades. I was a little nervous to finally go and see it myself for fear it wouldn't be what I wanted, but New York City did NOT disappoint. It lives up to its hype, and maybe that's why I love it so much.
In my life I am discovering that I don't always know what's going to happen, how my story is going much less how my story will end. At this moment it feels like those movies that leave you punched in the gut. Right now there are very few parts of it I can look at and say...I am blessed. Mainly because there are big parts that need mending and healing. Those are the parts that today I feel like bite.
It's like I said before...I have to remember when in a valley I 'have' to keep going to ever reach a mountaintop. So if ever you have been in my shoes please share the wisdom, and if not be thankful that you have a reality worth making a movie about. :)