Hello there my dear blog,
I'm back to haunt your beautiful interface with a story. Probably a rather boring story, with an almost cliché moral for an ending, but we can blame that on the lack of creative zeal!
The story begins with a very troubled girl at 2am. Now this girl isn't really the main focus of this tale, more of a sub-character. A vessel for plot development if you will ;). Anywhooooo! This girl had a sudden wave of complete and utter panic. The kind of panic she would feel if she had 5 exams the next on on subjects she had never attended the classes or lectures for and only found out about them then and had no materials to study with and if she didn't get at least 80% she would get kicked out the course. Yup.
(Long sentence much??) so she came downstairs. And she hugged her rabbit. And she tried not to cry. And then she saw a book. There it was just sitting under the curling wand(s) and the crimpers and the straighteners.
Now bearing in mind that it was one of her favourite books ever the brilliant idea to "read the first couple of chapters to calm herself down" popped into existence and so off she went.
Not the neatest cover you'll ever see, but it was the copy available at the time. Alone on a Wide Wide Sea - Michael Morpurgo.
She cried. ALOT. She wiped the tears away and told herself she was being silly, then she cried some more. Then told herself she was being silly... Yadda yadda you get the idea, no?
Until during one moment, a bloomin' brilliant moment in the book, she realised exactly what she needed to realise. And she wasn't quite so panicked. Yeah she still cried at the remaining sad bits but that was okay. Because they were sad. She wasn't crying for herself anymore, she was crying for the characters she had re-fallen in love with. She was crying for a story she already knew the ending of. And most importantly she was crying for the brilliant work of art that had drawn her in and had made her stop and think. It had made her see what she needed to tell herself.
I'm sure anyone reading this will have experienced panic or anxiety at some point in their lives. That girl is probably experiencing it more often than she'd like to admit. Nothing anyone can say or do, can really make it go away. It has to be you. By all means they could help, but the only person who can tell it to STOP is you.
She didn't have a person to help her tell it to stop. She had words written on a page, by a man who has never, and probably will never know who she is. He didn't make her explain herself to him. He didn't even care really. All he did was tell her a story. A story about loss and finding things. A story about happiness and sadness. And most importantly, a story about the stormy sea that is life. It turns out that those words did more for her than she had ever expected. By the time she had reached the end of the book, the horrible feeling she had was easing. She had lost herself and found herself through the power of those words.
Now I know, that my words are not as powerful, or eloquent a the words in that story. But they are words none the less, and words are one of the most powerful things, I think, exists.
I'll post this little(ish) story (or rambling of a sleep deprived, emotionally drained individual) and I'll probably regret it a little bit. However in all it's in-eloquence it has one thing going for it! It's just another example of the many out there about the importance of reading. I've read all my life. Reading has always been important but this was a different kind of important. The right book at the right time is more than just an escape. It's an answer. I would have gone mad tonight if I hadn't had this book. It's as simple as that.
And it's comforting to know that the answer can be as simple as reading the right book. With that knowledge, I might just make it through.
Much love,
Pixiegnome xxx
