The Book Nook

10

I remember that day very vividly, that Monday in the month of May. It sticks out to me like a memorable vacation, a year-long lead up to a much anticipated adventure. But the special thing about days like that May Monday were that they come up from out of nowhere. Those are the best days, the unforgettable days.

I can recall the whole sequence of events; meeting Eloise for the first time, sitting at that table with Alexandria in the pub, the playground after dark, the electricity of that moment. None of it was all that long ago yet it simultaneously felt like both yesterday and last decade all at once.

There were so many particulars of that night that I so wish I could hold on to. How it had happened like something out of a John Green novel. But as we all know, most girls love their cutesy romances that happen like movie scenes. Which, reminiscing on that night in the park, it seemed it really had happened like a scene out of a movie. Perhaps far too much so that it had become no longer even believable to me. Idyllic story-book occurrences like that did not happen to achingly average people like me.

I never thought that I could become blinded by an imagining of love like that. At the time, I believed myself to be perfectly rational and that I was insusceptible to fooling myself like that. It's difficult to ever truly trust ourselves to be altogether sensible in the midst of being caught up in something we had believed we had been waiting much of our life for.

And that's where I had it wrong. You don't wait your whole life for love to come to you; you live your life and in the midst of it, love will find you when you least expect it to. But if it is, or becomes, your sole purpose, then you've misunderstood the whole point. People quite often mistake the pursuit of finding a partner to be the top priority in their life; as if life is not worth living until you've secured a significant other to be by your side to give validation to your existence.

Some time before I ever fully understood this concept, I recall this topic coming up between Alexandria and I. "It's nice to have, sure," she had said, "but it's not why we are alive."

Putting all your hopes and dreams into another person, I realize, could never be truly satisfying. And I think that's where a lot of young people, or persons in general, really lose their way because they're so caught up in their lives revolving around this other person that everything else begins to matter less. Which isn't particularly a good thing. What happens when it all goes wrong? Then what are you left with?

Alexandria always used to say that whenever something gets on her nerves, frustrates her, or somebody makes her angry, she tells herself that there's more to life than what we see, and that we are meant for more than what we might merely perceive. She says she also tries to be mindful of that during the good times too. Like when she does well in school or goes out and buys nice things for herself; I can remember her saying something peculiar like "these things are great and all, but I can't really take them with me to the next life."

I attribute this to how I think of the way people focus themselves on chasing or maintaining the love of another person. It makes me wonder that if the Christians are right, then there's a much, much bigger being that we should be focused on rather than the trivialness of pursuing simply another physical human being. It sounds even foolish when put that way. Could the love between two flesh and bone mortals really compare to the divine love that is talked about amongst the religious and the spiritual?

Admittedly, I was never the most spiritual person. I tested the waters back in high school but decided it wasn't really for me.

There were several important aspects of that reminisced day that could be important in the here and now. To the list on the board, I also added: