If My Life Were A Book

If My Life Were a Book



If my life were a book, it would be divided into chapters and sections for easy reading and editing, and it would definitely be written in bold typesetting, with graphics and colorful pictures thrown in. If my life were a book, it would be one that the reader would be hard to put down until the last page of the last chapter is done. It would make the Bestseller List, or the basis for a movie script. The book would have at  least 57 chapters ( one chapter for every year lived, until today ), and I would definitely rewrite Chapters 37 – 40.



On second thought, perhaps I would  even rewrite beginning Chapter 35, for that was where that great warning, given in ten seconds or less like a  card flashed before my eyes, saying “ Beware, this woman is a potential threat to your marriage.” albeit ignored by a too trusting, arrogant heart. Charge it to the naivete of youth, and the arrogance of one that loved and believed that it could happen to others but not to me. Had the warning been heeded, had I been more cautious and less naïve, maybe, just maybe, that sordid affair could not have happened.



Living, and being hurt in life is a common human condition; writing about it could be therapeutic; putting the events down on paper is catharsis itself, a process of detaching oneself from what is “ up close and personal ” to a safe distance where one could view the events and minute details without the twisting and lacerating pain of remembrance. 



So, who needs reminders about one’s stupidity, and who wants lessons in betrayal? Maybe you do, so you wouldn’t be as naïve as I was, to have allowed things to happen right under my very nose. There. Acknowledging that I wasn’t really as smart as I thought  I was.  Maybe we all need to learn from life’s practical jokes, and confront our own vulnerability so we can empathize, identify with the sinners, and forgive. Ourselves.  Others.  But even as time had deadened the scars, and having forgiven I have been freed from the bondage of bitterness, there is still that lingering thought : I should delete this chapter, it is too much to remember. The argument stays: if my life were a book, I would rewrite Chapters  35-40; unlike a suspenseful book one can enjoy while sitting at the edge of a chair, real life experience is something the brain records for future replay. Life’s pain is better lived vicariously.