Last night I watched 'The Notebook' - to catch up on the bits I'd missed when the DVD was skipping at Claire's. It's very very lovely. I also finished reading 'The Story of Lucy Gault', which is a great book. However, both of these things made me sad.... and I was trying to figure out why.
They're both about people's lives from childhood/teenage years right through to old age, and something about that makes me sad. I think it's partly that it seems to highlight the brevity of life - especially when someone goes from a teenager to an old people's home in the space of a 2 hour film, or a day's reading of a book. And maybe it's also because they both show people making choices which affect their lives right to the very end - in one case, a choice which led to good, and in the other, a choice which led to sadness.
In 'The Notebook', the choice is very obvious - there's a scene where the girl (Allie) has to decide then and there who she's going to be with forever. She makes the choice, and that's that - they all live happily ever after. In 'The Story of Lucy Gault', the choice is not so clear-cut - even by the end of the book, there are lots of 'if onlys' hanging over the outcome... if only one thing hadn't happened, if only someone had written a letter a little bit earlier, if only they hadn't assummed so much... Lucy makes a bad choice early on, but it's influenced by something else and then compounded by other things that happen later.
I think it's the 'if onlys' that make me sad.
I'm currently trying to decide about work.... where do I go from here - should I change jobs? To what? - something similar but with more prospects? Something totally different? Or should I stay in my present job? It would be nice if it was a clear-cut Allie choice - if I could follow my heart and live happily ever after. But it's not. I guess I'm scared of the 'if onlys'... will I look back in 30 years and say 'if only I'd made that move sooner' or 'if only I'd chosen a different career' or 'if only I'd not spent so much time trying to find the perfect job for me'? Or, in the long run, will it not make much difference?
I can't control how things will weave together or the questions I'll be asking in 30 years' time though... so I guess I need to make the decision for now. And right now I want to find a new job. So I think that's what I'll do... any suggestions are welcome!!
1 comment:
Hmm... helpful reminder to keep all these big life decisions in perspective. Reminds me of the whole idea that it matters less what we do than who we are (and you're great :-)!).
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