So that's a good point... Where did I go? If you ever read my blog or know about it, then you know that I have not posted anything here in a very long time. Almost 2 years. Which is crappy, but whatever, I'm working on it. If you know me, then you may also know that the past 2 years have not been the easiest for me. Especially the last year. It pretty much was the worst year that ever existed, and you may or may not know that I did not handle it very well. Or that I was very suicidal. *Spoiler alert*: I didn't kill myself!
So, alas, here I am. Working shit out all over the place like I actually care about myself. Whoa. Before you start to feel sad for me or worry about my current state of mental health, don't. I appreciate the fact that you care. However...thanks, but no thanks. I am doing much better.
Which brings me to my latest blog post and the book that made me want to write again. Where She Went. This is the sequel to the popular If I Stay, by Gayle Forman, which was okay but not my favorite. Like, I felt it was cheesy and that maybe I was just too old to enjoy it for what it was without feeling a little embarrassed about reading it (and actually liking it). But whatever. Who cares? Irrelevant. The sequel, though, I enjoyed very much. And I can't fully explain why but I am going to try. On the surface, it may seem like just another one of those teen books where the main character pines over a love they can't have and they end up either getting what they want, or not getting it and being sad, or not getting it and realizing they always had what they needed in the first place. I am not going to spoil the end for you because I think you should just go read it yourself, right now.
Anyway, that might seem like what it is on the surface. I thought that at first. And even though I felt that way several times throughout the book, I really enjoyed it. I mean, come on, who doesn't want an emo boyfriend whose whole life revolves around you and he is utterly lost without you and only you can make him complete. (No question mark, because how could that even be a question?) Okay, maybe not that extreme, but still... However, throughout much of the book there were also specks of it hitting me in the gut. Like, once I heard a review of Doug Martsch's album 'Now You Know' and the person said something about it like: it was "like getting punched in the heart in a good way". I love that. I always felt that way about him and Built to Spill. But I digress... (If anyone knows what review I'm talking about, let me know. It was back in 2009 I think.)
Anyway, as this book went on, my heart kept getting punched. And I know why. Because in this book, the main character Adam, and what he goes through emotionally, I feel like that was my life for so long. I think it helps that, just like Adam, I am going through some shitty part of my life, and working out my issues, and coming to terms with all of the things that I hate about myself and what I've done with my life and how I ended up in the place that I am mentally. (And I've been listening to tons of cathartic music lately, aiding in my mental transformation. And I just have to say, when Forman mentions Yo La Tengo, New Pornographers, Wilco, Andrew Bird, and Sufjan Stevens, and particularly the songs 'Challengers' and 'Chicago', in the most cathartic and coming to terms scene in the book, I was like - this is me. And the magic word is 'acceptance'. Of all the shit I went through and all the shit I've become.)
The first sentence of the book was what did me in. "Every morning I wake up and I tell myself this: It's just one day, one twenty-four-hour period to get yourself through." He tells himself that since he got through yesterday, he can get through today too. And, pow!, punched in the heart. When I was at my lowest and I didn't want to face the rest of my life, let alone one day, this is what I would say to myself...you can make it through today, that's all you need to do.
I could go into detail about every bit and piece of this book that expressed how I feel about myself and life, but this post is getting long as it is. So I will just also mention the one part that actually made me decide I love the book and motivated me to write a blog about it and why I like it so much. Because it helped me have a breakthrough in how to look at how I was before, versus how I am now. In case you're into this book, I will tell you it's on pages 196-197 in the edition I am reading. "I could tell how much had changed just by how different everything sounded." And, pow!, punched in the heart. Has anyone else ever felt this way?
It really struck me. When I was really depressed, everything sounded like nothing. Like sadness. Like reasons to kill myself. Even the sound of crashing waves would have done that. Like they would have reminded me of all the beautiful things in life. And how I was too sad to appreciate all of those things and it made me even more sad that I couldn't appreciate them. It's weird. It's hard to explain unless you've felt the same way, and I know it's a weird way to think about things. It's like being disconnected from your body and seeing yourself do and say things, make mistakes, make things worse for yourself, but you can't stop that trainwreck.
So, like, I would hear waves, know that they should make me happy, but still be so sad about everything else, about life, that I came to hear the sound as a depressing sound. In reality, it was usually more the sight of things that did me in, rather than sound. But the metaphor still works. I would go to the ocean and look out onto it and feel this weird feeling in my chest. Like my heart breaking all over again. Like my breath would catch and I'd want to cry. I guess it was like seeing all my missed opportunities. Before this, I would look out onto the ocean, or to the mountains in the distance, and think of all the things I wanted to do in life, and all the places I wanted to go. When I got really depressed, it was too depressing to enjoy life and be hopeful. I wanted to want to be happy. But it never worked.
Well now that I'm not super depressed anymore (thank you family, friends, doctors, Wellbutrin - oh yeah and myself too), things sound and look different once again. Now I don't look at the ocean, or the mountains, or whatever else and feel depressed. I feel hopeful. I want to live life. I want to do everything and see everything. I want to be myself again. Now I don't just want to want to be happy. I want to be happy. Now when I hear the waves, I don't hear the sound of loss. I hear life, and happiness, and the possibility of getting back all the things that I've lost or let go of the past year. Or at least the possibility of finding something new and good to fill the hole that the past year of my life has left inside of me.
That hole is nowhere near as big as it was even a couple months ago, but it is still there. It's just that, now, I see how I can fix it.
So. Wow. Big, long, emotional, cathartic post. Hardly wrote anything about the book. But, as you hopefully know, this blog isn't just about the books. It's about how they make me feel. How I connect with them. And this book made me feel. For sure. Every emotion. And even though I was working on that metamorphosis myself already, seeing the thoughts I have been trying to think written out like another person is thinking them helped me to break through whatever was covering me. And I could finally see what I was trying to see. I spent the last year of my life feeling like I was on the verge of finding the answer to some big problem that was haunting me. But at the same time, I couldn't remember what the question was. Now I can see. Thanks fake emo boyfriend. Thanks Gayle Forman. And thanks to all of you for reading all of this post; it means a lot to me.
I hope you all get punched in the heart. In a good way, of course.
So, alas, here I am. Working shit out all over the place like I actually care about myself. Whoa. Before you start to feel sad for me or worry about my current state of mental health, don't. I appreciate the fact that you care. However...thanks, but no thanks. I am doing much better.
Anyway, that might seem like what it is on the surface. I thought that at first. And even though I felt that way several times throughout the book, I really enjoyed it. I mean, come on, who doesn't want an emo boyfriend whose whole life revolves around you and he is utterly lost without you and only you can make him complete. (No question mark, because how could that even be a question?) Okay, maybe not that extreme, but still... However, throughout much of the book there were also specks of it hitting me in the gut. Like, once I heard a review of Doug Martsch's album 'Now You Know' and the person said something about it like: it was "like getting punched in the heart in a good way". I love that. I always felt that way about him and Built to Spill. But I digress... (If anyone knows what review I'm talking about, let me know. It was back in 2009 I think.)
Anyway, as this book went on, my heart kept getting punched. And I know why. Because in this book, the main character Adam, and what he goes through emotionally, I feel like that was my life for so long. I think it helps that, just like Adam, I am going through some shitty part of my life, and working out my issues, and coming to terms with all of the things that I hate about myself and what I've done with my life and how I ended up in the place that I am mentally. (And I've been listening to tons of cathartic music lately, aiding in my mental transformation. And I just have to say, when Forman mentions Yo La Tengo, New Pornographers, Wilco, Andrew Bird, and Sufjan Stevens, and particularly the songs 'Challengers' and 'Chicago', in the most cathartic and coming to terms scene in the book, I was like - this is me. And the magic word is 'acceptance'. Of all the shit I went through and all the shit I've become.)
The first sentence of the book was what did me in. "Every morning I wake up and I tell myself this: It's just one day, one twenty-four-hour period to get yourself through." He tells himself that since he got through yesterday, he can get through today too. And, pow!, punched in the heart. When I was at my lowest and I didn't want to face the rest of my life, let alone one day, this is what I would say to myself...you can make it through today, that's all you need to do.
I could go into detail about every bit and piece of this book that expressed how I feel about myself and life, but this post is getting long as it is. So I will just also mention the one part that actually made me decide I love the book and motivated me to write a blog about it and why I like it so much. Because it helped me have a breakthrough in how to look at how I was before, versus how I am now. In case you're into this book, I will tell you it's on pages 196-197 in the edition I am reading. "I could tell how much had changed just by how different everything sounded." And, pow!, punched in the heart. Has anyone else ever felt this way?
It really struck me. When I was really depressed, everything sounded like nothing. Like sadness. Like reasons to kill myself. Even the sound of crashing waves would have done that. Like they would have reminded me of all the beautiful things in life. And how I was too sad to appreciate all of those things and it made me even more sad that I couldn't appreciate them. It's weird. It's hard to explain unless you've felt the same way, and I know it's a weird way to think about things. It's like being disconnected from your body and seeing yourself do and say things, make mistakes, make things worse for yourself, but you can't stop that trainwreck.
So, like, I would hear waves, know that they should make me happy, but still be so sad about everything else, about life, that I came to hear the sound as a depressing sound. In reality, it was usually more the sight of things that did me in, rather than sound. But the metaphor still works. I would go to the ocean and look out onto it and feel this weird feeling in my chest. Like my heart breaking all over again. Like my breath would catch and I'd want to cry. I guess it was like seeing all my missed opportunities. Before this, I would look out onto the ocean, or to the mountains in the distance, and think of all the things I wanted to do in life, and all the places I wanted to go. When I got really depressed, it was too depressing to enjoy life and be hopeful. I wanted to want to be happy. But it never worked.
Well now that I'm not super depressed anymore (thank you family, friends, doctors, Wellbutrin - oh yeah and myself too), things sound and look different once again. Now I don't look at the ocean, or the mountains, or whatever else and feel depressed. I feel hopeful. I want to live life. I want to do everything and see everything. I want to be myself again. Now I don't just want to want to be happy. I want to be happy. Now when I hear the waves, I don't hear the sound of loss. I hear life, and happiness, and the possibility of getting back all the things that I've lost or let go of the past year. Or at least the possibility of finding something new and good to fill the hole that the past year of my life has left inside of me.
That hole is nowhere near as big as it was even a couple months ago, but it is still there. It's just that, now, I see how I can fix it.
So. Wow. Big, long, emotional, cathartic post. Hardly wrote anything about the book. But, as you hopefully know, this blog isn't just about the books. It's about how they make me feel. How I connect with them. And this book made me feel. For sure. Every emotion. And even though I was working on that metamorphosis myself already, seeing the thoughts I have been trying to think written out like another person is thinking them helped me to break through whatever was covering me. And I could finally see what I was trying to see. I spent the last year of my life feeling like I was on the verge of finding the answer to some big problem that was haunting me. But at the same time, I couldn't remember what the question was. Now I can see. Thanks fake emo boyfriend. Thanks Gayle Forman. And thanks to all of you for reading all of this post; it means a lot to me.
I hope you all get punched in the heart. In a good way, of course.
"I fell in love again. All things go, all things go."
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