Life Imitates Art

Do you ever read a book and feel so conected to the main character that you're a little concerned that the author genuinely predicted your future? I've had that happen a few times in my life - mainly when my dramatic, hormone-fueled teenage body was convinced that I was the only one who had ever felt these Big Sad Feelings. I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who's experienced this. You're going through a breakup and decided that you need to read a book that is advertised as "ripping out your heart and stabbing it with a rusty spoon", or you're in the middle of a big life change and you decide to read a book where the main character's life change didn't work out. It's like the book that will resonate with you the most comes to you at exactly the right point in time.

Recently, I was dealing with some of those Big Sad Feelings I mentioned earlier. It felt like one shitty thing after another was being piled onto my shoulders and I didn't know how to handle it (talk about good ol' former Catholic girl repressing her emotions). So obviously I read a ridiculous amount. I finally sat down and read Lucy Score's Things We Never Got Over which, for someone dealing with Big Sad Feelings was probably the wrong decision. This book hit me in my gut at, arguably, the wrong time for my feelings. While I can't fully connect with Naomi - I don't have a deadbeat twin who stole all my shit and left me with a niece I knew nothing about - I could understand her sense of aimless floating. I recently quit my job as a teacher and I'm trying to move to a new state while I still don't yet have a job. I'm leaving everyone and everything I know and moving somewhere brand new - granted I know the area since I have extended family there but STILL. So, I'm feeling like everything is going wrong and everything is against me - no jobs are getting back to me, I'm not having luck apartment searching, my friends are all seeming settled and secured in their jobs and relationships and personal lives, and I'm just...here. Floating. No long-term aspirations other than not being homeless.

As I'm reading, I'm laughing at Naomi's wit and calling Knox out on his bullshit, I'm falling in love with these characters and their love, and then two lines hit me like a freight train. Naomi asks herself "Was there someone out there who would find me to be enough? Not too much or too little, but the person they'd been waiting for their whole life?" I. Lost. It. I started bawling uncontrollably. This is how I've felt most of my life. Relationships and I haven't meshed - people never seem to want to stick around and I'm constantly asking myself what I did wrong and how I can be better and what I need to change.

I'm 28. Logically I know I should be over these feelings, but it's really hard to accept yourself when you feel like no one else does. As a teacher, I always told my students that their essays needed a "so what?" moment. They needed to tell their reader what the point is, why their idea was important, and why we should think about it. I'm breaking that rule now (sorry, kids). I'm not really sure what the point of this post is, but that quote really spoke to me and I knew I needed to write about it.