How We Survive our lives

Drive (2011) - IMDb

www.imdb.com/title/tt0780504/‎

Rating: 7.9/10 - ‎312,575 votes

Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn. With Ryan Gosling, Carey Mulligan, Bryan Cranston, Albert Brooks. A mysterious Hollywood stuntman, mechanic and ...

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As I watched Drive on Amazon Prime streamed through my Roku onto my large flatscreen in the living room I was sort of horrified because my best friend in High School reminded me a lot of the lead character played by Ryan Gosling. He was this faithful to the death kind of friend to those he cared about too. And even though he did not have to become a criminal like the lead character did. Still, I knew many people in High School that were just like this character in many ways from street racing cars.

Though I didn't own a street racer because I had a father that would not permit me to. (He often raced other men in cars while I or my Mom were on board on Freeways and from stoplights when I was under 12) but stopped I think because he was maturing and knew I would follow in his footsteps as a street racer and he wanted me to stay alive because I was always a physical risk taker like he was and many members of my family down through history were. Though this can be a very admirable quality in some situations it can also be fatal too. So, I think my father wouldn't let me have or build a street racer because he wanted me to stay alive and grow up to be the gentleman he could be proud of.
(Also, my father's brother's son was killed at 16 in an auto accident and broke his neck and died a few minutes after the accident before going to the hospital). I was only 8 when this happened and it was one of the first times in my young life that I felt very mortal and afraid to lose a cousin that young.

This movie was very difficult for me to watch because my best friend from High School and Junior High is dead now several years ago. But, I'm still alive and able to continue taking care of my family and myself ongoing. What I felt was "There but for the grace of God would have been me!". Though my friend never became a criminal partly because I was his friend and partly because he had to get a jet engine certificate and to join the Air Force so he wouldn't be drafted into the Army and get killed on the front lines. So, he repaired Jet engines on fighters and bigger planes in Thailand that flew into Viet Nam from there. So, when he returned our my parents and his mother had moved to new areas so we didn't find each other until our 40s on Yahoo. But now he's gone again and I'm grateful not only that I'm still here and that my life went smoother than his did. and that we could be friends again for almost another 20 years before he passed away. But he was always an honorable man and I'm grateful he never had to become a criminal like the man did in "Drive" 2011.

I thought about why I had a good life and mostly it was because I had a very intelligent and adaptable father who was always there physically, even when he wasn't emotionally as much until I was 10 or 12 when I became "his best friend" and to be treated this way was amazing for me. IN some ways I also became my mother's confident which I found sort of strange but also endearing as well. So, I was very close to both my parents. But, I didn't grow up between the 1920s and 1940s like they did. I was born in the late 1940s so I had a completely different experience than they did. Just like Kids born since 1980 and 1990 are completely different from their experiences too. There really is no comparison to one era to another because things have changed so very much since about 1950 when I started remembering things consciously and still can remember them now.  But, I'm very grateful to my parents that helped guide and protect my life as well as all my mentors in both churches and college and people who helped me along the way to have as amazing a life as I have had. By the Grace of God I'm still here.