I've never read The Da Vinci Code or any other Dan Brown novel. It took me nearly ten years to read a Harry Dresden novel and to be honest, I didn't find Storm Front all that great.
And don't get me started on the Twilight series. The only way you'll ever get me to watch or read those is to institute methods a la A Clockwork Orange.
*Editorial Note: I still need to read that one, btw. Duly noted.
But I also have a somewhat uncanny knack for discovering stories at moments in my life where they hit with the most poignancy and resonance, and such is what I found last night with The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.
It doesn't take a genius to see that Lisabeth Salander is a broken person. She has no family, has had her sanity questioned, trusts no one, is extremely introverted, horrifically abused and disregarded as pretty much a freak. But she's good at her job as a hacker and researcher and that brings her to the disgraced journalist Mikael Blomkvist's attention.
Mikael has a problem which he cannot solve on his own and in pairing up with Lisabeth, he also, without perhaps realizing it, gives her something much more important.
Purpose.
By the time the story is over, there's no certainty as to what their relationship is. It's been both professional and deeply personal, and while Mikael is able to get on with his life, Lisabeth can't because there really is no next part of her life to move on to. What she wanted, and in many ways needed, was someone like him.
While I was watching the movie last night, I was multi-tasking on both the book I'm getting back to work on, and having a rather heated conversation with a friend on FB. Like most of my friends, she tried explaining to me that what I want most in my life is probably not going to happen, at least not any time soon, and I need to finally come to some level of acceptance with that rather unpleasant fact and find something, or someone, to fill that void.
And my answers were always the same. I can't.
I thought I was past this by now. Given that it's been a few years, I was supposed to be and I know how much it's bugging those around me that I'm not, even if they don't come right out and say it. I finally fell asleep last night far later than I should've, trying to find some rationale for just what it is that I'm feeling and why. When I finally woke up again this morning, my rather sleep-deprived brain picked it back up without missing a beat and has been churning away on it since.
The simple and honest answer is I don't know other than for the very briefest of moments, I had a purpose. Now I don't and I want it back. I want it back more than I've wanted anything in my whole life, but I can't have it, because it was never really mine and I didn't deserve it in the first place.
And I'd be lying if I said making myself understand that didn't hurt like hell.
In my life, I've had bones broken, skin cut wide open, and bruises that felt like they took weeks to heal. I'd gladly take how all that felt over this any day. Any. Day.
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