thoughts
It cost me only fifty cents to change how I look at life.
The change occurred during the summer after my first year of college. This was the summer I performed in a community theatre production directed by one of my high school teachers. It was the summer I fell in love for the first time. It was the summer I read a book that would change the way I think about love for the rest of my life. To get a true feeling for where I was at in life at that time, we have to go back to June of 2010. I needed to find a costume for the play, so I decided to browse through a local thrift store for some cheap clothes I would never wear again. After about fifteen minutes of fruitless searching, I realized that I wasn’t going to find anything. However, I am my father’s daughter, so I feel guilty if I walk out of a store without buying anything. That’s how I ended up browsing the much-to-be-desired book section. Now, anyone who knows me knows that I can spend over two hours in a bookstore and still need more time. But this wasn’t a bookstore. This was three shelves stuffed with a frightening conglomeration of children’s books previously owned by the world’s most destructive kid, trashy romance novels from the days when Fabio was still relevant, and cookbooks filled with recipes that would give Paula Deen pause. Frustrated by my wasted trip, I turned to leave. That’s when a flash of yellowish-orange caught my eye. Shoved in the corner of the second shelf stood a short, fat book. The spine had been re-taped so many times that it was impossible to make out the title, so I jimmied it free from its perch. The cover was in bad shape as well, but I could make out The Thorn Birds, though the author’s name (Colleen McCullough) was unreadable. I knew only two things about this book. 1) It had been on our reading list in high school but no one ever read it because it was so long. 2) An episode of Reba referenced it. Other than that, it was just another book I hadn’t read yet. I checked the back cover for the price: $2. I set the book on the counter and began to dig through my purse for my wallet. The cashier commented on the sorry state of the book, realized it had been wasting away on that shelf for at least the two years she’d been working there, and offered it to me for fifty cents. I gladly accepted her offer. Upon returning home, I flipped through the book to check for missing or damaged pages. To my delight, I discovered that the inside of the book had likely never been read, despite the outside giving the appearance of being an actual doorstop. The pages were immaculate; free of coffee stains, highlighted passages, or dog-ears. But between the play and taking summer classes, The Thorn Birds were forced to hang out in their nest on my bookshelf for a couple of months. (Yes, I am aware that the book isn’t actually about birds. But that sentence popped into my head and I liked it, so you’ll just have to deal with it.) Toward the end of that summer, I rescued the book from my shelf and curled up to read. Mary Carson immediately became my favorite. She was a total bitch who made no attempt to disguise her desire to throw Fr. Ralph from grace. (I should probably warn you at this point that though I have a small crush on Fr. Ralph, I mostly think he’s kind of a self-serving jackass.) I also loved that Mary Carson was such a complex character beneath the surface. Every move she made tortured her, as her decisions were a constant battle between destroying Fr. Ralph and admitting that she loved him. The former usually won out, as revealing her love would make her weak because not only was Fr. Ralph a priest, but he was also a few decades her junior. Then, the heroine of the story was introduced. Meggie Cleary, as a child, was me. We were both the youngest girl (though she had only brothers), were mercilessly teased by our older siblings, had little interest in spending time with other girls our age, and spent a great deal of time being criticized by our mothers. As adult versions of ourselves, we had much less in common. Until later, but I’ll get to that in a minute. Now, for those of you who have read The Thorn Birds or watched the miniseries, I’m sure you can imagine the havoc this book was wreaking on my brain, which had been formed by a strict Catholic upbringing. At 19, I was sure I understood everything about everything; therefore, I couldn’t wrap my head around why God would allow these two people to fall so deeply in love when it was impossible for them to be together. (Yes, I’m aware they’re fictional characters, but we all know these types of relationships happen in real life, too!) As I mentioned before, I read this book shortly after I fell in love for the first time. Or, at least, what I thought was love. But, much like Meggie Cleary, I had fallen for a man who was always going to put his ambitions above me. It wasn’t quite the same scenario, as I wasn’t chasing someone who had promised himself to God, but to my overly dramatic self, I believed I completely understood Meggie’s pain. Much like Meggie and Ralph, this guy and I kept finding ourselves drawn together, but the timing was just never right. He knew how I felt, he entertained the idea, and then he left. Now that I’m an adult myself, I understand that he did absolutely nothing wrong. He was a man who recognized that a teenage girl had a crush on him, and he (wisely) chose to remove himself from the situation. But at the time, it felt like my whole world had crumbled. I sought refuge in The Thorn Birds. I considered this guy my own personal Fr. Ralph: A man I would forever want, but could never have. (I warned you that I was a little bit dramatic.) I allowed my imagination to run wild with “what could have been” scenarios, creating an epic – though ultimately doomed – love story out of what was actually a teenage crush on a guy I’d known for a couple months. While I hate to admit it, I was behaving a bit more like Romeo Montague than Meggie Cleary. As I got older, I outgrew that first love and moved on. But I never left behind my feelings for The Thorn Birds. I’ve watched the miniseries multiple times, also forcing several friends to sit through the whole 8 hours with me. I didn’t pick up the book again, though, almost as if I was scared of what I would find inside its pages this time. Finally, this past spring, I decided to reread the book. Twelve years after my first reading, I again immersed myself in this story that had touched such a raw nerve the first time. And to my horror, I realized how little I’ve actually changed. Once again, I found myself imitating Meggie Cleary by being in love with someone I can’t have. Once again, I was sidelined by someone who put their own wants first. Once again, I was absolutely crushed. But this time was also different. I didn’t let myself slip into the depths of despair over this new love. I didn’t rail against God to ask how dare He allow people to fall in love when they couldn’t be together. I didn’t fall apart. It’s most likely just a weird coincidence that the two times I’ve read this book were also the two times I’ve fallen in love. Or maybe I’m just destined to have poor judgment in my pursuit of romantic partners. But just in case there is some sort of weird magic in that book, I should probably wait another 12 years to reread it. Just to be on the safe side.
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Jacinta M. CarterProfessional Book Nerd Archives
March 2019
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