So, my hubby and I watched the movie "The Soloist" last night. If you haven't seen it, it's a really beautiful film about a talented but mentally disabled homeless man who is discovered by a newspaper columnist on the streets of LA. Funny, sad, frightening, beautiful and honest, the film also covers a theme my husband and I regularly discuss.

In the film, the Columnist imagines that if he can just get enough good things to happen for this talented man, he can lead him back to the civilized world. That all this man needs is a chance and someone to make it right, make him normal. It's a gift the Columnist gives wholeheartedly. But the man he's trying to help isn't asking to be fixed. What he is asking for might just be more than the Columnist is able to give--his emotional commitment.

More simply put, when to fix...and when to simply listen.

Hubby and I have been a team for about 18 years now, and for all of that time, we've had one issue we cannot meet in the middle very often about. See, my husband is a fixer. Maybe it's a middle child thing. Maybe it's a man thing. I'm not sure, but he is absolutely sure that if there is a problem, there must be a solution. That it's a simple equation and if he tries hard enough, he can find the right thing to do to make it all better.

Hubby likes things in black and white.

Me? I live in a world of gray.

You can't fix teething. You can't fix when your kids are sick. You can't fix being tired but having a million more things to do before bed. You get through them, sometimes fighting, sometimes dragging, but there's no single solution some days other than time. But the biggest problem, the thing that has no one solution at all...is feelings.

If there's a way to rip out my hubby's heart and make him feel desperate to make everything right again, it's to make me cry. I'm not a touchy-feely girl, thank God, so he doesn't suffer the malaise often, but there are times my emotions get the better of me and end up twisting his knickers into a tourniquet. He tries, God love him, to find out what's wrong and do his best to get me the necessary head on a platter that will fix my pain, but usually if I'm that far gone, it's a miasmic cloud of emotion that has little to do with a single situation and usually is about something I haven't totally let myself work out. Frustration with my career. Irritation with my babies who refuse to listen. Heartache about lost loved ones. Intangible things he can't correct with one sentence, with one plan, with one efficiently suited act.

I tell him, "Honey, sometimes I want you to just sit with me and listen. Don't fix. Sometimes, I just need to feel like I'm being heard."

I think he hears, "Honey, sometimes I want you to just sit in an acid bath and sizzle while I lay out my miseries in as slow a fashion as I can concoct."

I'm not sure if the movie made him feel any better about the things he can't change. Probably not. But I think maybe it gave him a second's pause and the next time I'm whiny, he'll probably sit in his chair a little better. It's a hope, anyway.

What about you? Seen any thoughtful films of late? Or had a moment that made you think? Share!