Heaven knows I'm miserable now

I wrote for six hours straight, a perfect flow, according to Csikszentmihalyi (who's pronounced Tschik-cent-me-hai btw – happy to be at your service), distracted only by adding footnotes, inserting quotes and another desperate attempt to find more than one sophisticated synonym for 'ambivalent', which has been garbaging the pages of my thesis like pigeons shit the streets.

Exhausting myself to the point I couldn't go on for one more minute. Drained of words, thoughts, energy.

But then, suddenly, out of thin air, Oscar Wao came along, took me by the hand, begged me on his chubby knees to follow him...

... and I caved in.

An hour went by, and another, and when I turned that last page, read the last paragraph, spoke the final written words in my head, one of the last golden rays of the late evening sun shone on that half empty page, lighting it up, greeting me with a sudden warmth, a welcoming enlightenment, and it was then that I tasted the salt on my lips for the first time, consciously felt my wet cheeks, my clouded eyes full of teardrops welling up in it, mourning the end of a book, the fate of a character I learned to love, to root for, and there it was. And the truth in it hit me like a sledgehammer.

“In the end? Nothing ends. Nothing ever ends.”

And though I had read these exact words before, written by a different author in a different place and time, they came crushing down on me again with an impact I didn't expect I could withstand, and I felt baffled and helpless and blessed at once, and for a while the book remained in my hands, a finger in between those last pages, for putting it down meant letting it go, along with every thought and feeling I embraced while indulging in this journey of the soul that shook me wide awake right then when I least expected it to. When I needed it the most. Stirring me up like an abandoned Sleeping Beauty, confused, irritated, scared. Did I consciously chose this one, being only one among so many that have been forever in that pile-of-shame of unread books, for some uncanny voice even I couldn't hear must have whispered in my ear to settle on this specific one right now? Do I believe in the divine? Fate?

Fact is, though my life's not at all like Oscar's...

… it's exactly like it.

We're all Oscar Wao.

Driven by our hopes and ambitions to lead the life we hope for, to be truly happy, whatever that means to you, to me - to love ...to be loved back. Yearning for intimacy, crushed if we're rejected, heartbroken, miserable, hitting rock bottom, to the point we get our shit together and keep on going. Stoic at first, baby steps, but after a while anger and despair turn into numbness, into acceptance, into calmness, contentment. The five stages of grief. And if there can possibly be anything ironic about them at all, it may be the fact that the same process that helps you accept death, the possible end of everything, equally guides you back to life.

Nothing ever ends.

So, my life is at a turning point, though by far not as dramatic as the last sentences may have suggested, but just like Oscar, I feel lost. Torn. True pisces fashion.

And yet here I am, with more possibilities than I could have ever hoped for, free to do whatever I want, to start it all new, and like it always is, when there are more flavors of ice-cream than you could possibly eat in your entire lifetime (or not - damn you, lactose intolerance), when one choice, one option looks or sounds better or more promising than the other, when the variety of possible futures clouds your mind, you can't focus on what you need or want the most, as choosing one would mean abandoning all the others, and in the end you're lost in yourself, lost in your hopes and dreams and unless there's someone around to give you that well deserved kick in the butt, to live life at its fullest by feeling the joy of succeeding and the pain of failing on everything you do - unless that happens you'll just stay in your well-established comfort zone, too distracted, too lazy, too comfortable to tear it all down, start again from scratch, build it all up before eventually trashing it down again.
'But if these years have taught me anything it is this: you can never run away. Not ever. The only way out is in.'

Since fate (and by writing this it seems I may consider acknowledging its existence) has decided to give a nod, the slightest, but nonetheless, it's about time to decide, to push away the fear of eventually losing what you got by aiming for what you hope for.
To give a flying fuck about reason for a change.
No one gets remembered for the things they didn't do.

And in the end, Oscar did, too.