A Little Life

I finished reading the book last Tuesday, not before the year end. (Plot summary here.) But that doesn't really matter because, to be honest, I still have 63 when-will-I-even-start goals from 2001, and I'm nursing my depression right now. I knew that was what waiting for me at the end of the book, but I kept turning those brutal pages anyway. And after ripping my brain the entire book, we have the chapter after "limes", which is so, so cruel and lonely and of no escape *knocks head on desk*.

There would be eye-rolling conversations about maths or law in the book, for example, and you are going to ask questions like "How did these people get so rich?" at some point. (I mean, it's pretty magic because there are middle income lawyers and actors and architects and artists in this world, right?) And most baffling of all: howTF does this guy swim two miles at 5.30 in the morning every day? But those, too, won't matter in the end because while this book may be about friendship and love -- far from the conventional friendship and love and life -- it is also about pain. There is an abundance of torture to bask in, it'll escape you that some people can just jet to Rome to escape a weekend.

I read the spoilers beforehand because that's how I operate. Even then, at various points reading the book, I skip forward to quickly find out what happens, cry, go back to where I'd left, eventually reach the part that I'd jumped to earlier and still manage to sob harder. Its ability to strike so many chords feels both scary and liberating, which we shall not discuss further, of course, because we are not unveiling my soul today, thank you. And for saying things that I often find myself stumblingly, almost defensively, explaining -- that there are more than one or fourteen ways to live life, for example -- I feel like I've just gained a secret friend in the book.

It doesn't mean I didn't wake up the next day in silent misery, though -- scrolling Twitter, making sure there were others, too, who got trapped with the same aftermath as me, to feel less alone. (These people are my best friends now, by the way. They just aren't aware of it yet.) I gave every happy people I met the following days an accusatory "Oh, you have no idea!" look.

Happy new year, everyone. (Or whatever, because how can you be so happy? What's wrong with you?)

p/s Support group is welcome.

Image: Doubleday