:: book bound

I finished Dorian Gray the other night, after having worked through each page at a pace so much slower than normal. Regrets? None. Looking back over every page that I folded over and highlighted made me only love the book more, despite not having actually loved every page of prose.

I've since moved on to something so much lighter and fluffier and despite how easy it is to read through, it doesn't pose the same challenges. It isn't offering the same kind of spring board for random life ramblings. One hundred pages in and I only have two pages ear marked in my new novel. Dorian Gray annihilates that number by one hundred percent or more, with quotes such as:

"He was prisoned in thought. Memory, like a horrible malady, was eating his soul away." (p. 267)

The last few weeks have appeared challenging from a nostalgic perspective. I have romanticized the past, wishing only to return to minutes that I felt better equipped and prepared for. I have tangoed with previous experiences, and have contemplated how things just do not feel the same, but, at the same time, do.

I've seemingly allowed myself to look, and then fall, into a pit of nostalgic quicksand. I'm sinking, folks, and my struggling is only making it worse.

"Each man lived his own life, and paid his own price for living it. The only pity was one had to pay so often for a single fault. One had to pay over and over again, indeed. In her dealings with man Destiny never closed her accounts." (p. 270)

I often think about times when I felt as if I had more drive to achieve the things I still dream of today. It's almost as if the older you get, the more that will gets sucked out of you. I'm not sure where the blame lies - soul sucking jobs, the routine of a nine to five office ordeal, the aging process, or ourselves.

My mind involuntarily rewinds to a time six years ago when I had the option of doing something more than I did. So often I want to go back and just kick that girl in the shin for the decision she made because, at that point in time, she was too lazy to take Route B when Route A looked so much brighter and faster.

I'm paying for that decision every day, and although it has led me down an interesting path and offered its own experiences and wisdom, I'm almost positive I could have also done without. Sure, I wouldn't be who I am today without those instances, but on the same token, I've only just rediscovered the girl who used to exist; the one with the drive and aching will. Everything in between only served to destroy that, which only makes me wonder, what was the point?