Work had been unseasonably light these days, which gives me much time to catch up on my reading. I just finished reading Anita Shreve’s “The Pilot’s Wife”, which had been in my book case for quite a while.
It tells the story of a woman whose husband dies in a plane crash. Then how she and her daughter deal with that loss. Surprisingly, the twist at the end disappoints. It was supposed to be a Hallmark-movie type of book: lots of drama, crying…then sudenly it turns into a suspense type of book. Aw, come on! And the ending..well, it’s not really an ending.
I double checked the book to see if there were missing pages, and realizing there was none, I actually thought: Is that it??
For what it’s worth, the book taught me how we all lead double lives. Not to the extreme that the guy in the book did. But don’t we all show a different side of us to different types of people? Do we really show how we are at home to our officemates or to our acquaintances? Why do we do that?
In starting relationships, we show off the best of ourselves, right? A guy, for example, tries to impress the girl by projecting himself as mature, responsible, funny or whatever–anything to impress the girl. The girl, once she knows that the guys is interested in her, projects herself as poised, well-mannered, witty–anything to impress the guy. Only for both of them to find out later on that the guy is uncouth and lazy. And the girl is a snob and a nag. The only thing that will hold up the relationship is if both of them overlook those nasty things and really love each other.
Isn’t it ironic, then, that we all pretend. We show ourselves differently in order for people to want to get to know the REAL us. Why can’t we all just be ourselves? Why are we so afraid to let others know what’s bad about us?
That’s just me, ranting. I, too, pretend sometimes.
