The Lovely Bones

I started the novel and gave up on it on Friday. It was so painful. I can't even begin to describe the plot beyond this: a murdered girl watches her family cope with her death. I almost didn't continue it, but the girl who let me borrow it told me on Sunday that it gets less sad I'm still waiting for that. I don't think I have ever read a book that made me feel so much. Reading it is like having a nightmare; I am wholly consumed by the oppressive emotions, yet once I lift up my eyes from the page to take in our apartment, the dirty dishes on the coffee table, the laundry I've promised myself for days I would take care of, I realize that it isn't real. It's just a book; just a dream. I wish I could write like that. I wish I could write a story that would make my readers cry and smile to themselves as they connect themselves to my protagonist. I wish I could write to make one understand the shortness of life, the importance of what you do with it, how much our small actions ripple through the lives of those around us. Reading this story makes me realize not so much my own mortality, but that of those around me: my husband, my parents, my siblings. I think of how my life could be changed without any one of them, and how crushing it would be to have to say goodbye. Next to this, small annoyances which I imagined myself to have suffered seem so small. I think of grudges I have held, and in this moment, I see both my selfishness in thinking that I myself could be above reproach. I am no better, no more innocent, and no stronger than anyone else. I am vulnerable, and glad of it.