By the Book

by Amanda Sellet

Sometimes I pretend my life is happening inside a book. I’m the main character, and there’s a narrator following me around, describing everything. Her piercing cerulean eyes gazed wistfully into the distance as an errant breeze caressed her lustrous auburn tresses . . . Et cetera.

As often happened with new people, I imagined how she would be described in a book.

Dear Diary, I’m sure someone (maybe Van?) told me Anna Karenina was a love story. To which I say: thanks A LOT. If that’s what passes for romance, I’ll happily stay single forever. I’d describe it as a train wreck but that would be a really bad pun. Talk about a relationship that was doomed from the outset. As anyone with half a brain would have known. Poor Anna may be nice, but she’s not the sharpest tool in the shed. And don’t even get me started on Vronsky.

The greatest novel of all time? Anna is smart, she is just led by her heart, not her head. She even asks Vronsky to leave, knowing what will happen because of the weakness of her heart.

I realized I must be the only member of the family who thought of me as a main character in her own story, as opposed to a background figure in the lives of more exciting Porter-Malcolms.

You should always be the main character of your own life. .

“Sometimes past associations hold us back. Nostalgia can be a trap. Don’t confuse loyalty and sentimentality,”