Last night I ended up Watching Carlito’s Way instead of my Six Feet Under disc. Over the years I have written lists about just about everything, to do lists, grocery shopping lists, things to do before I die lists, goal lists, and dream lists. The two that have been the most fun over the past year have been the books to read list, and the movies to see list.

From time to time someone would mention a book or a movie and then express astonishment that I hadn’t seen it, or read it. I can’t count how many times I’ve heard, “You’ve never seen The Godfather?” or you’ve never read “ Crime and Punishment?”

I would get embarrassed sometimes and say nothing when I didn’t get a joke or a comment related to a classic. “Say Hello to my little friend” meant nothing to me. People discussed the brilliance of the genre creating “In Cold Blood” by Capote and I kept my mouth shut. I sometimes nodded while absolutely clueless.

I am not sure if I can really explain why I missed so many books and movies over the years. From the age of 15 through 19 I worked fulltime, after having made one of the worst decisions of my life to drop out of high school and get my GED. I can say that it took me a long time to recover from my abusive childhood and my father’s suicide when I was 12. I do know that the aftermath to his gift that keeps on taking was I found myself severely depressed and with a drug and alcohol problem by the age of 13. I can’t really blame him. Even at the time I knew I was making some fucked up choices and I didn’t have the self esteem to care.

In the late 80s early 90s my then boyfriend, now husband, Alex, saw that I had some VC Andrews books on my shelf so he started buying me the latest release as soon as it hit the market. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that I wasn’t really interested in reading any of her work after the Flowers in the Attic series. I read every book he brought home, not wanting to hurt his feelings. When I found out she had died I was actually relieved thinking there would be no more books (isn’t that horrible?) But they hired someone to continue writing under her name and so the gifts continued. I finally broke down and told him that I didn’t want to read them anymore and he was surprised I hadn’t said something earlier. I don’t know why I was so afraid to tell him the truth.

With my pregnancy at the age of 18 I got sober, left my job as a pastry chef when my stomach made it nearly impossible to work at the speed that was needed for restaurant production, and threw myself into motherhood completely when Nate was born. Polly came along three years later and by that time I was up to my tears in Barney, Mr. Rogers, Sesame Street and Dr. Seuss. As completely absorbed as I was with being Mommy I neglected my needs totally.

Now I find it a pleasure to finally read all of those books I kept a mental tally of. Now I have a document on the computer of books I want to read and I add to it constantly.

The same goes for movies. My queue at Netflix has over 150 movies on it and I look forward to each one with a child’s Christmas morning anticipation.

I liked Carlito’s Way a lot more than Scarface, which I also liked when I saw it for the first time last weekend. On further reflection I think it’s because Carlito is a character I found myself sympathizing with, unlike Tony Montana. I totally wanted Carlito to catch that train at the end. I think the ability of a screenplay writer and a movie director to create a sympathetic character out of what should be a despicable unlikable one is a gift. This has been brilliantly done in Movies such as Goodfellas, The Godfather I and II, and Pulp Fiction. I also noticed this while watching the Sopranos. Not many writers/directors are able to pull this off but when it’s done properly, the results are memorable. The same holds true for Rodion Romanovitch Raskolnikov in the brilliant “Crime and Punishment”. I almost wish that I could go back and have those conversations with those who were talking about these things years ago now that I finally get what they’re saying!

Mothers, fathers, people, take time out for you. It is so important. Having little things that are just for me, whether it is a movie, a book, a bubble bath, a walk, or my garden has changed my perspective on life for the better.