I was looking through some of my old writing for magazine ideas, and stumbled upon a book review I wrote this past September. It is a testament to how powerfully the book affected me that I wrote pages and pages about the thoughts it inspired. I've included an excerpt of the review here. This entry is a little more personal than usual - but the book touched me and it might touch someone else as well - so here goes.
September 14, 2005
Last night I read the book "The Myth of You and Me" by Leah Stewart. It moved me and touched me in a way that few books do. Sonia and Cameron had been friends since they were 14, but the close friendship ended tragically eight years later when Sonia confessed she had slept with Owen, Cameron’s college boyfriend. Eight years later, shortly before her wedding, Sonia attempted to contact Cameron, who was working for Oliver Doucet, a famous historian, as a live-in caretaker and research assistant. After Oliver died, he left instructions for Cameron to contact Sonia in order to deliver a mysterious package. Her curiosity peaked, Cameron left Oxford and headed to Boston, ostensibly to find Sonia and deliver the package. Cameron ends up back at the same fork in the road that she faced eight years before, and is forced to relive all the moments that led to her decision to end her friendship with Sonia. Over several days, she begins to heal old wounds and stir up old relationships. In a sense, she returns to the fork in the road and chooses the other direction.
Stewart talks a great deal about the fact that many truths coexist at the same time. Life is not linear, as most people view it, but like a string that continuously crosses over itself and reconnects. She theorizes that the end result is evident in every choice, and that once a choice is made, a new, alternate life forms alongside our own, in which the opposite choice was made. Though I have heard this theory before, it was not compelling to me until now. Each fork in the road would have an infinite number of forks alongside it. Stewart also discusses the fact that it is impossible to ever know all sides of a person because each person is a world. I find this thought to be immensely comforting. In each of us lies the destruction and creation of a world. Which path we take becomes a matter of choices converged with circumstance. No, more it is a matter of choice. Many bad things happen to people who choose to remain basically good, and many good things happen to people who choose to become derelict. It is not that some people have better luck than others, merely that some people have better attitudes. Is a good attitude an inherent personality trait? I think not. I choose to believe we are all blessed with the ability to choose how we want to act, despite whatever circumstances may have befallen us at whatever age. From then on, life is about continually choosing the best attitude. Many people do not want to believe that life is a series of choices, but instead choose to believe that life is a series of good or bad things that happen to them. In this view, they bear no personal responsibility for their actions or reactions. It is an easier view to be sure. I personally like the complexity and responsibility of the former view.
I began thinking about all the different choices I have made in my life, and all the different people I could have become as a result of these choices. The possibilities are infinite! All of my choices and attitudes have led me here - to an apartment in Palo Alto, California, agonizing over writing, and chasing the days away with the love of my life, as we explore all that the world has to offer us. At times, I think I have been very lucky indeed. But I also realize that I am here because I chose to be here all along. I am still choosing. Where will I be in five years? I have no idea, but I do know that where I will be is beginning now, in the decision to stay in today to write, in the decision to be mindful of the moment, in the decision to be aware of my blessings, in the decision to be aware of other’s needs, and the decision to be aware of our connectedness to the world.
Ted and I have often stayed up late imagining versions of our lives together. A few of our favorites:
Version One- Nomadic adventurers - We do travel nursing until we save up enough to have a good nest egg. We hike the entire Appalachian trail before joining the Peace Corps. After returning, we work for Doctors Without Borders, he as an FNP, and I as a coordinator and UN liaison. As a hobby, we work for National Geographic, detailing our travels, Ted with photos and I with words. When we do want to settle down, we move to a small North Carolina town, or possibly Rogersville. I teach and work part time in the coffee shop that we both own. He works at the shop full time. We adopt several children and own a self-sustaining farm. Both of us continue to do freelance work.
Version Two - A variation of Version One, but diverging after hiking the AT. Ted goes to school to become a FNP. I go to school to major in International Relations. I work for a nonprofit, while Ted works for a rural clinic. We have children. Eventually, we open a coffee shop and own a self-sustaining farm while doing some freelance work. We continue to travel the world for fun.
There are many versions of these plans, but all with the basic thrust of traveling, helping others, and owning a coffee shop or a self-sustaining farm. In some versions, our son is Byron Charles. In others, he is Gabriel. In others, Isaiah. Our daughter is Isabelle, or Zara, or Elizabeth. In some versions, we have no children at all. The best part of all these versions is the pleasure we derive from dreaming together of all these different lives, all our different selves. All the different roads we could take together. And we know, even in the midst of these plans, that life can change in a moment, that we are not guaranteed the breath of tomorrow. And yet we dream, because we can and because we hope, and because we trust.
I try to imagine sometimes what life would be like if Ted were to suddenly die tomorrow, in the same way that mothers try to picture losing their children, in an effort to somehow prepare for an almost inevitable blow. I try to picture myself getting out of bed, making myself get a job, sorting out the bills, eating meals that all taste bland. Once you have found your other half, it is difficult to imagine being alone again. Perhaps in this version of my life I would still travel overseas, join the Peace Corps, and basically continue along as in Version One, except without the coffee shop, and perhaps with fewer adopted children. I really don’t know. I pray that Ted and I will be able to go on like we are now, hand in hand, for as long as we both shall live, which is hopefully to the same exact moment, although I know that the chances of us both dying at the same time are slim. And yet, when one or the other of us goes, the one who remains still has choices about how he or she will live. We can choose to get out of bed in the morning and face the day. We can choose to go on, as a testimony to the strength of our love.
Life does not happen to us - we mold our lives. I, for one, will continue choosing to be happy. And alive. And in love.
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