Back to life, Back to reality

I just finished a book that I have been reading for my first three weeks in Chicago, titled Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen.  Everyone in the gang had already read it and recommended it.  From day one, I was hooked, trying to sneak in a few last pages or paragraphs before the train arrived every day at work.  The book is full of gritty details of the life of circus workers during the 1920s and 1930s.  Today I got into the final chapters and it really heats up at the end. I had to stay up and finish it and now it's nearly 3 am! My Carey is on her way to work as we speak! Reading a book again reminded me of how fun it is to actually read and hold the physical thing in your hands.  It also made me sad that my children won't ever probably even use a paper book.  It's like how we look at records or ATracks, that's how they will look at old books.  Explaining to them what a bookshelf was used for in the "olden days" is also kind of sad.  

For the first three weeks in this apartment, we didn't have Internet (that all changed this morning) and I had somehow forgotten about all of those television shows I was obsessed with when I came here too.  Of course, I still have to catch up with Amazing Race, but I wasn't upset about missing an episode or two. I also checked email via my brand new IPhone, so I wasn't going without Internet, but for awhile, albeit brief, I felt a little bit more connected to people and less to the world wide web, television, and this alternative reality that we have all been entangled in.  It felt good, and while I am excited to have it back, I hope to hold on to some parts of that feeling that I've had over the last three weeks. 

My emotions come in waves, and I mention the book and reading because I think what was happening in this book really affected my emotional well being.  If I ended the book at a sad part, I would find myself a little down in the dumps. If I bookmarked the page at a really exciting part, I would find myself all spunky and hyper-like.  It's funny how a fictional story can bring about emotion in someone.  It also inspired me to write.  I know I have a story inside waiting to get out.  I am still on the fence about this whole blogging thing, but I think it's a good start.  It will force me, even if just for awhile, to actually sit down and conjugate thoughts into a clear pattern.

I've always said I wanted to write a memoir, as I feel like crazy/wild/unpredicatable things are always happening to me, and just when I think I've reached the crescendo and know where the story will go, another loophole comes and knocks me flat on my ass.  Sometimes I want to just scream, "OK God, I get it.  I am not in control." But at the same time, at other times I think, "why me?"  Why do I have to be the one to lose their Dad, have a sister with cancer, and a failed marriage all before my thirtieth birthday?!?  I just hope God is trying to get all of the bad things out of the way up front so I can really enjoy and relax in my 30s and beyond and enjoy them without a smack in the face every couple of years.  I almost fear reading email updates from friends and family, or even going on facebook because it seems like when it rains it pours, but I think it's all about perspective too, and I hope that if I ever do get the chance to jot down all of those words into a physical memoir, and get to hold it in my hands and give it out to all of those I love (and don't love), that the underlying message does shine through.  Look at the brightside.  Follow the yellow brick road.  And all the jazz...