Wednesday, January 8, 2014

mes livres: just let go, Eleanor and Park

I read before bed (and when I wake up and during breaks at work and you get the point). Anyway my system goes something like this, after being caught up in a series or finishing a long intense book, I usually break things up with a lighter read. Usually some short stories, mostly Neil Gaiman. Just something that allows me to still read but without having to be enveloped in another world so soon after just leaving one. Does that make sense? Whatever. My whole point and the reason for my typing this is because I need for Eleanor & Park  to let me go. I wasn't expecting them. How could I have been?!
I finished a series a few nights ago but wasn't quite ready to sleep so I figured I would just download whatever ebook was waiting for me. My friend had sent me Eleanor and Park for Christmas and I knew it was a YA book so I figured it was perfect for light reading. This is her fault, obviously. She could have warned me.
I didn't sleep that night. At least not until six the next morning. I couldn't stop. I knew it was getting later and later but I could not make myself close my tablet. Just push the button...I couldn't do it. I was buzzing. Totally caught off guard. That was four nights ago.
 I've read it once through every night since. I don't know what I'm trying to do; desensitize myself to it? Every night I tell myself, "Okay, you don't have to finish it. You know how it ends, just let it go." Let it go? I don't even know how it attached itself to me! It has nothing I usually gravitate to anyway. No science fiction/fantasy, no future worlds in need of repair, no historical retelling, no time traveling, no android discovering feelings...it's just two kids on a bus, how could it not let me go? but then I know... of course it's found a way inside. My music, my comic heroes, Eleanor, Park...Park. I've spoken to my friend, she knew. She would know, it got her too.
So now what? I write this in hopes that my old trick will work. Write it somewhere, anywhere just so that the paper (or screen?) can hold it for me. It doesn't have to be the obsessive running theme in the back of my mind. I don't have to plead with my thoughts during the day...please let me go.
Maybe this will work, or maybe I'll just have to make myself read something as equally or more intense... something by Jeffrey McDaniel. I'll just read his, The Last Straw, over and over. That should do it...