Strange Nervous Laughter

What is it about the human animal that simply will not let go? Oh, you might like to think you're the exception; the one who has managed to walk away from all your past relationships with a clear heart, and a firm resolve.

I don't believe you for a second.

And if you have managed to walk away without pain and torn fingernails from hanging on so tightly, then I'll bet there was an Incident when you were younger that devastated you, and turned you into the unfeeling slab of marble you are today.

I understand; don't take it personally.

For the rest of us, though, there is a definite tendency to clutch onto whatever shred of the relationship is left over from the arguing, the heartache and the spite. And even if this shred is dirty, and smells funny, and is really very obviously not what we want in our lives, we reserve the right to hang on to it, and if anyone else even thinks about touching our snotty little shred of leftover love, we will injure them in any way we know how.

It's called not letting go.

Not moving on.

Being human. (p. 58-59)

Perhaps it is in these moments in our lives - the moments when we take leaps of illogical abandon - that we are nudged out of a rut by our impatient souls.

If we are here to do something bigger than the everyday slog of work, TV, banal relationships and tasteless food (and I would argue that each of us is), then perhaps, on occasion, when the ruts we are living in start resembling complex mole holes more than shallow dips, our souls get edgy.

Put more simply – perhaps, when it is time to change, we are governed by something deeper than common logic. And at the same time, deep down, don’t we all secretly want to be swept off our feet? The still, small space within (many of us) dreams of meeting someone who will dare to say, after three encounters: ‘You are amazing.’

Don’t we all want that?

Meryl, surprisingly, did. (p. 174)