Life

I just finished reading a novel. While it was interesting enough for me to read the whole thing--and even care about the characters somewhat--it was kind of... well, like a novel. A little far-out. It was an LDS romance and the main characters are a young man (early 20's) who, after living a wild and reckless life, was in a terrible car accident that nearly killed him, joined the church and was disowned by his family. He moves to Utah to go to BYU and meets the leading lady, who is raped three days later (by another, creepy guy). Then the rest of the book is about all of the trauma that Leading Man and Leading Lady endure so perfectly together until they all live happily ever after.

Have you ever noticed that the characters in books have lives that are...well, too full of stuff? I am really extremely fond of Jane Austen's novels, but they are kind of far-out too. Nothing really terrible and traumatic happens to any of the main characters; mostly they endure a lot of mental stress before they finally end up happily ever after with the rich men of their choice. Which, I think, is actually a lot more realistic than the novel I just finished this morning.

Have you ever noticed that life isn't really like that? I mean all the disaster. The news would have us believe everything is horrendous. Yes, I do know these terrible things do happen to some people. In fact I am very closely acquainted with someone who had to deal with a truly horrible relationship; his (now ex-) wife did some things that were atrocious. But now things are better and it looks like he will live happily ever after, too. Still, for the most part, most of us have lives that wouldn't make fascinating reading in a novel. Or do we?

After finishing this swell novel, I started thinking about my own life with Bruce (after all, it was a romance novel). Our life has been good, and it is good. We met in highschool and were instantly married. OK. We didn't actually get married or live together while we were in highschool, or anything like that. We just acted like we were married in every other way. Five years after we started dating we really, officially got married. Wow, that was great--I'd do it again! We put Bruce through school together; we moved across the country and lived in Tennessee for three years (a story to tell later); we've had eight kids; we've had some ups and downs. That's the short version.

But maybe if people could read the detailed version it wouldn't sound so mundane. Maybe if others could feel the things we've felt, our life wouldn't look so tame. If our troubles seem small to one person, maybe they seem insurmountable to someone else. And just maybe our plain and ordinary story would be someone else's best-selling novel. I think we could read "amazing" in every life around us--without any of the extraordinary, novel-like sensationalism to accompany it. Just life.

Life is amazing!