A kind of long post about nothing too interesting. The real title? Happily Ever After

I always have mixed feelings after finishing a really great book. It's typically a good feeling of completion. The plot has come to a close, the conflict has resolved, the unraveled ends have been tied, everything's happy, and you feel all warm and fuzzy inside. It's all fine and dandy, and a good time was had by all, or at least until the book is closed and completion is actually admitted. This is the point at which I frequently find myself experiencing with a feeling of loss.

Maybe I'm too emotionally involved. Okay I am too emotionally involved. I'll admit it. When I get wrapped up in a really good book, it almost quite literally becomes my world. I find myself enveloped into the details of the environment, and I can't help but wrap it into my everyday life, even outside of actually reading the book. I'm driving to the store and I find myself wondering how all those people would fit in that car if every last one of them suddenly turned into warewolves (Yes, I sadly admit that I read the Twilight series.). I find myself making mental bets on who would win the argument across the wall if their hands clutched wands and murmured spells escaped their lips. I find myself worrying that the clunk of the heater I hear as I drift off to sleep is Javier drawing ever nearer to capture Jean Val Jean, whom I suppose must be hiding in my closet. I attempt to imagine a world with no color, and try to extract memories of warmth and happiness in bitter times, wishing I could give them to others in desperate need. My heart breaks as I imagine my little nieces and nephews and kid friends marching off to war, and I wonder if I've been charitable and fair to those with calloused and impious scars on their hearts. It goes on and on.

So when I actually finish the book, it's like the world I have been living in for the past x amount of time has suddenly and unwantingly disintegrated with the close of the book. I have to come back to my own life, which is not quite as exciting as escaped convicts, mysterious cowboys, and magical make believe lands; or as dramatic as wars amongst children, lives of teenage girls who reach unattainable aspirations, or marriages of illicit lovers. Sure, the book may end in a happily ever after story tale ending, and that's great for them, but I'm left feeling as though I'm still dangling on a cliffhanger. Just as I feel a sense of completion in the book, just at the point where I feel as though the character's life (aka--mine, because I am that character now.) is where it aught to be, when the last page is read, and the book is closed, WA-BAM! I travel back through the time/world continuum and look up from the closed book to see my world once again. To hear my obligations calling. To feel my duties I've been neglecting demanding my attention.

So glad you had a happy ending, dearest Cosette/Fulton/Harry/Ender/Marjorie/super awesome character I have grown to love and adore that doesn't even exist, but now what am I supposed to do? I'm still in the middle of my story! I suppose I have learned some good things from some of you, and I suppose now I need to carry on with on my own story, tie up my own unraveled ends, resolve my own conflicts--present and future, fall and learn from my own shortcomings, rejoice in my own successes and blissful life, and find my own ultimate happy ending down the road. Let me just, you know, pick up this other book along the way...