Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

Every Little Thing by April Jeppson

When you really enjoy something, you want to share it with those around you. When I fall in love with a song, a restaurant or an activity, I just have to share it with others. I want to see the look on their face as they experience it for the first time. It’s right up there with listening to people talk about what they are passionate about. It’s one of my favorite things.

My children are always sharing their new songs with me. Sometimes it is a casual request, and other times my son cannot function properly until he’s shared his new jam with me. I know he gets that desire to share from me, so of course I abide. When that feeling hits, it is a sense of urgency that I cannot describe. Waiting to share something special with someone doesn’t cause me physical pain, but it is close.

Have you ever been changed by a film? Like the way you see the world afterwards, it is just different. I felt this way about “Fight Club” after seeing it for the first time. It was like nothing that I had ever watched before. I wanted to talk to everyone about it. I wanted to break it down and discuss everything I had just witnessed. I thought it was brilliant.

My son is almost 16 and enjoys watching scary movies with his friends. He actually enjoys many different genres, because he appreciates the art form. He will talk about the camera angles, the lighting and music in a way that I don’t believe other teenagers talk about film.

This past week, my daughters have been with their grandparents. Being that my son is a movie buff, and we had the house to ourselves, I thought it was time to share with him one of my favorite movies. I felt he was finally old enough to appreciate the context and handle the content, and I couldn’t have been more excited.

We were probably only 20 minutes into the film when he declared that he really liked it. As the movie progressed, he made occasional comments about the lighting and the feel. We were just over halfway through when he said that it was already one of his favorites. I knew that he was going to like it, because he’s my son and I know him. I wasn’t sure if he was going to love it as much as I do, but it was starting to look like it.

After the movie was over, he had so many questions. The look on his face was absolute delight as we discussed our thoughts and theories. The next morning he continued the conversation and resumed it over dinner. This movie hit him in the same way that it hit me.

Isn’t that why we share things we love? We want them to taste, smell or see our new favorite thing because we hope they enjoy it as much as we did. It’s why we send memes to our friends and why I wanted my son to watch this movie with me.

Happiness shared is happiness doubled.

Albert Lean April Jeppson is a wife, mom, coach and encourager of dreams. Her column appears every Saturday.