It has been quite some time since my last post. A lot has happened, and I fully intend to give an update on my comings and goings. But not tonight. Tonight is about a burning desire to write that I've been lacking as of late. I believe it came from a lack of reading, I haven't been challenging myself. That was before I started reading real books again.
Lately, I've been having feelings of adventure budding up in my everyday life. Not that I'm actually going on adventures mind you, but more feelings of excitement of things to come. It feels a little like opening a new bottle of soda. A surge of energy comes rushing to the surface, changing my perspective- if even just for a moment, then dissipating into the atmosphere...
I just finished Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises (hence the sentence fragments) :). I don't intend to spoil, but just so you know- I may unintentionally give something away. Also, I feel inadequate in even writing my feelings about such an amazing author, but whatever. I won't be using literary terms, and I don't plan on dissecting it.
Jake Barnes is the main character that is an expat living in Paris, writing at a newspaper. At this point, you're probably asking yourself, "Brandon, what does this have to do with love?" that is when I counter and say, "now." Jake has Brett- and by has, I mean is desperately in love with. FYI Brett is a woman named Lady Brett Ashley but he always calls her Brett.
To me, she represents the full spectrum of an unhealthy relationship. At times, she is sweet and loving and vulnerable. Especially when she is alone with Jake. She tells him of how wonderful their life would be together if they could just be together. But she is also cruel and thoughtless and selfish. She brings other men around him, asks him to help her seduce men, and is engaged to another man from the beginning (whilst going through a 2nd divorce I might add). The way that the author tells of Jake's mostly hidden pain is wonderfully done.
It got me to thinking about my own life. Mores specifically about my Brett. It's easy to read about Jake and think to yourself, "man, what an idiot!" but when I read about his pain (even though it wasn't brought up often) I thought, "man, I can totally relate." Sometimes we do stupid things for people we care too much about. Sometimes, we don't see how helping the one we love is self destructive behavior and ruins us for a long time. But I like to think that Jake figures it all out in the end. I know he'd be a better person if he did.
A chapter of my life is finally ending, and a new one just beginning. Some has to do with opportunities that are coming up soon (like I said, I'll write another post about them) but it also has a lot to do with realization of certain elements of my life that have been on hold for sometime.
It's good to be back.
