"Life is like a novel. This novel is incredibly long, and detailed (if you’re lucky). Slowly the mass of pages move from your right hand to your left. Mostly the book is unexciting. Yet, you’ll find some of the pages highlighted, notes written in the margin.
The day you learned to ride a bike, the first time you baked cookies without your moms help, the name of your goldfish, the first time you were ever left home alone, or snuck out of your house.
Those moments glow.
Other pages, well other pages are bookmarked. Specifically noted as a point in your story when you were changed beyond a mere highlight. Events that brought color and warmth, progression and strength to your tale.
A marriage, a baby, a new job, anything that made you stop what you were doing and say to yourself, “THIS is a day that will be infinite to me.”
Then there are the dark bookmarks.
The ones that stick out from the pages of your life like razorblades. The moments when you are irreparably altered, and unable to control your course.
The moment your story turns into a tragedy.
These bookmarks can often times split the tale in half altogether. There is the version of your life before, and the part that came after. Try as you might, no binding can put the two halves together again.
The new story is not for others to read, or even share. Maybe you were sick; maybe the love of your life died. Maybe you grieved your Mother or your Father. Or you lost the child you wanted more than life itself.
Perhaps one day you tried to make a list of everything in the world that made you smile, and sat staring at a blank page until it was so late only you and the stars were up.
Yet despite it all, our stories go on. They intersect like highways. It is our job to keep going, to keep reading. Take the pages of our lives that are bloody, ripped, covered in tears, and somehow find hope and meaning. To take the broken mangled second half of your book and try to live again.
It’s not easy, and I’ll be honest, I don’t think it’s always possible.
There is no such thing as the perfect legend, the perfect story.
Yet every day we strive for it.
I mean…What other choice do we have?"
~Jess Fortunato
The day you learned to ride a bike, the first time you baked cookies without your moms help, the name of your goldfish, the first time you were ever left home alone, or snuck out of your house.
Those moments glow.
Other pages, well other pages are bookmarked. Specifically noted as a point in your story when you were changed beyond a mere highlight. Events that brought color and warmth, progression and strength to your tale.
A marriage, a baby, a new job, anything that made you stop what you were doing and say to yourself, “THIS is a day that will be infinite to me.”
Then there are the dark bookmarks.
The ones that stick out from the pages of your life like razorblades. The moments when you are irreparably altered, and unable to control your course.
The moment your story turns into a tragedy.
These bookmarks can often times split the tale in half altogether. There is the version of your life before, and the part that came after. Try as you might, no binding can put the two halves together again.
The new story is not for others to read, or even share. Maybe you were sick; maybe the love of your life died. Maybe you grieved your Mother or your Father. Or you lost the child you wanted more than life itself.
Perhaps one day you tried to make a list of everything in the world that made you smile, and sat staring at a blank page until it was so late only you and the stars were up.
Yet despite it all, our stories go on. They intersect like highways. It is our job to keep going, to keep reading. Take the pages of our lives that are bloody, ripped, covered in tears, and somehow find hope and meaning. To take the broken mangled second half of your book and try to live again.
It’s not easy, and I’ll be honest, I don’t think it’s always possible.
There is no such thing as the perfect legend, the perfect story.
Yet every day we strive for it.
I mean…What other choice do we have?"
~Jess Fortunato
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