This entry is going to be less of a means to express and understand myself but more of a mechanism to use a book as a tool to do it for me (and hopefully quote it correctly without violating any copyrights or committing plagiarism). And the title of this entry is the title of a chapter from the book: The Midnight Library.
This morning when I woke up, my phone’s battery had died despite it being on the charger for the entirety of the night. When it was clearly so dead that it would need more than thirty minutes to resurrect itself I decided to put off my typical morning routine of digital disassociation and instead made myself a cup of coffee, picked up the book which I had recently purchased at Left Bank Books in Pike Place Market, and sat outside to begin reading. Its premise of what would or could a life look like if different decisions could have or had been made is a topic I think most people have thought about at some point in time or another. Particularly around regret.
For me, my life has been full of regrets recently. So when I read the back of the book and realized that my answer to the question of whether or not I’d like to undue decisions that I regretted was a resounding “hell yes”, I made the purchase. A book about a woman who has decided to die but is suddenly is presented with the opportunity to explore what other lives she could have had had she made different decisions is too similar to the path I’ve been walking for me not to want to read it. Deep regret and the subconscious belief that the life you have right now is not the life you were supposed to have resonates with me heavily. Death has been a very real ideal for me this year – a longed for escape that I’ve so far unsuccessfully tried to attain. And regret has been this omnipresent, quiet voice driving me into an avenue of existential blindness: where else could I possibly be going if I can’t see anything besides, maybe, off a cliff? And when I thought about it, the idea of going off a cliff – of that blindness becoming a permanent darkness – didn’t been seem so bad.
There are so many quotes around the futility of regretting anything so I struggle with acknowledging something that is very real for me but what society tells me I should not, in fact, feel. And yet, if regret is a sentiment that exists, then isn’t its existence for a reason? To dismiss it as an obstruction to our human experience seems almost unfair to it.
I’m not going to finish this entry right now but there are a few excerpts that I want to highlight which have really resonated with me so far because they capture what I have been feeling over the last few months and years – and still to do to a certain extent, although I feel my outlook and attitude have both been much more uplifted in recent weeks. I also have the feeling I’m going to want to quote this entire book because it’s already been relatable to an unusual degree so I’ll at least try to keep quotations relegated to just this one entry.
Chapter: The Man at the Door
(1) “As she stared at Voltaire’s still and peaceful expression – that total absence of pain – there was an inescapable feeling brewing in the darkness: Envy.”
Chapter: String Theory
(2) “‘I’m feeling much better”, she lied. “It’s not clinical. The doctor says it’s situational depression. It’s just that I keep on having new…situations.'”
(3) “‘Pressure makes us, though. You start off as coal and the pressure makes you a diamond'”
She didn’t correct his knowledge of diamonds. She didn’t tell him that while coal and diamonds are both carbon, coal is too impure to be able, under whatever pressure, to become a diamond. According to science, you start off as a coal and you end up as coal. Maybe that was the real life lesson.”
Chapter: Doors
(4) “As she stared now at the magazine cover – an image of a black hole – she realized that’s what she was. A black hole. A dying star, collapsing in on itself.”
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