“The past is done. The future is uncertain. All you’ve got is this one moment, right now.” – Dirty Like Zane Jaine Diamond
The quote above is from a Romance series that I discovered this past year by Jaine Diamond. Please don’t laugh too much. This quote is from one character speaking to another about addiction and finding sobriety, and while that’s not what this blog is about the quote still fits. I’ve been an avid reader the majority of my life, my favorite genres being Sci Fi/Fantasy and Historical Fiction, and I’m not referring to historical romance novels here. I’ve read my fair share of non-fiction and I do delve into classic literature that isn’t assigned to me to read by a college professor. The reasoning is because I needed to know things. Yeah, I was that girl who read Shakespeare’s The Tempest and The Holy Bible all because I wanted to. I’m a great big dorky nerd.
That’s not to say I didn’t partake in my own fair share of trashy Romance novels, or smut books as I like to refer to them, back in my youth. I was a big fan of the historical romance novels by Johanna Lindsey that always featured hyper-chiseled Fabio on the cover. I’m not going to lie and say that I read those books for more more than the sexy bits (or so I thought). They were predictable: Extremely beautiful innocent girl meets over-the-top handsome dude in some impossible situation, like being sold into his brother’s harem or being kidnapped by pirates. At first they hate each other, innocent girl loosed virginity to handsome dude and eventually fall happily-forever in love and live perfectly ever after. The End.
Sometime this past winter I accidentally fell back into reading smut. I had a hard time focusing on the current Fantasy series I was reading. I am not blaming the book, because it was well written and a great story but with everything going on around me in my real life I needed something that didn’t take much effort. Amazon has this great thing for their Kindle called Kindled Unlimited, where basically for a very small monthly fee you have access to more books than you can ever read in 20 lifetimes. One day I stumbled upon The Boy I Hate by Taylor Sullivan, which was basically what I know now as a second chance/best-friend’s brother/roadtrip romance with a HEA (that’s Happily Ever After). I thought, “What the hell?” downloaded it, opened it and got sucked into the tale of an awkward, not very self-assured heroine and a (seemingly) moody asshole hero who hated each other over a misunderstanding that happened way back in their youth. Much hilarity, more misunderstandings, steamy sex and heartache ensued before the two worked their heads out of their arses and found their HEA. Entirely predictable. Entirely certain and entirely what I needed at a time when in real life my Dad was dying from a terribly ugly disease and my husband’s depression/maybe borderline personality disorder was again in full bloom. My life was anything but happy and predictable. So I kept on reading those Romance novels to find the balance I was lacking.
(Side-note: Romance novels today are very different from those I read in my youth. There are so many sub-genres, some that intrigue me and others not so much. The heroes and heroines have faults, traumas and surprisingly there is not always HEA ending in sight. Not every book has a Fabio and super-beautiful innocent maiden anymore. I’m quite fond of the ones that usually involve some darker issue(s) but still have a HEA have a humorous streak about them, like the Cake novels by J. Bengtsson or the Dirty series by Jaine Diamond).
My life still is still full of uncertainty and it can be uncomfortable. But that’s life, isn’t it? Some seriously sorry stuff has happened over the course of this year; my Dad’s death and funeral, his younger brother’s death a mere 3 months later and the passing of two people who for a time where my surrogate parents. There’s been stress involving work and the ever present stress of my husband’s disease and what, if anything, he’s willing to do about it. I care deeply for my husband, but I’m not going to lie, this is very hard on a relationship, on me and the future is full of uncertainty.
I have made a concentrated and completely conscious effort this spring/summer to not let all the sadness consume me. I cannot let it. I went in search of finding some “joy”, sometimes by myself or with my daughter in-tow. I rediscovered my art, or rather dusted-off because I don’t think I ever really lost it. I brought music back into my life. I’ve made reconnections with old friends who I missed way more than I realized. Walking through my old college campus with two important people from that time was gloriously sentimental. Going to see my best friend from High School was the best medicine I could have asked for. We could still talk and confide in one other like we only seen each other yesterday, instead of over a decade. With other friends, forgiveness was given and received, which just might be the greatest feeling of all. I have great co-workers that make me laugh and value my quirky humor. The trip out East to see my beloved niece graduate and time spent with my family just…being, was greatly needed.
My life isn’t predictable, it never was nor likely will it ever be. Nothing is ever certain, but oh, there is happiness to be found. I didn’t end up with a HEA like they do in the romance novels and that’s okay. I had a stinking awesome youth and quite frankly a fun time trying to navigate through my 20’s and 30’s, even if I didn’t always seize every opportunity I coulda/woulda/shoulda. I can’t change any of it anyway. Predicting the future is something I cannot do, it’s uncertain, instead I’m going to do what I can today. Focus on the now.
I’m still going to read trashy romance novels however.
Yesterday's Tomorrow Today 