late to the midnight library party

I just finished listening to the audio book of The Midnight Library. Lauded by many as an amazing read, I decided to use my o2 gifted with contract audible voucher to listen.

I related a bit too much to the character in ways that made me switch off the first chapters, afraid to hear my own reality within the words and afraid to confront the echos of my feelings in the past few years.

But (spoiler alert) as I’ve picked in up again this week and listened slowly to the beautiful and heartwarming ending it has made me reflect on life, in the way I am assuming Matt Haig wanted us to.

Am I rambling through life without actually observing the possibility and beauty in my everyday?

Am I aware of the potential that lives within me? Am I too aware of my past failures and false starts, afriad to even try again?

There is something I find so wonderful when I see friends realise their own potential and when I see people walk into their own dreams. When they take a chance or leap into something unknown.

I delight in the stories of women particularly, who go out and do the thing, believing in their own idea, in their own vision and capacity.

This book, and its brilliant idea of a library of all the possible lives we could have lived, makes me wonder, if sometimes it is within our own power- more than we may understand, that we can walk into those things.

As a Christian I believe God created us all, in all our unique beauty and differences, I also am beginning to see that maybe God sees more potential and more possibility in us, in his creation, that we do. And when we have ideas that give us joy, when we see the potential in the day to day, maybe, just maybe, he is the one shouting from Heaven - yes, they’ve seen it! Yes, they’ve got it!

This past summer, I was turning over and over an idea in my head that i’ve had for a while. An idea for a business, a small side project to nurture something in me that doesn’t get nurtured in my work. In a M&S coffee shop, I decided to share the idea with my mum. And her reaction made me so sure of myself; her belief that it was worth trying, worth investigating and putting out there made me feel the same. It’s a work in progress, it might take some time for me to get there, but it is something that makes me so excited. Something that gives me hope for my own abilities and potential.

This book has done the same. Travelling along the journey with Nora as she discovers the joys of choosing life, choosing to live, have made me want to once again do the same. To choose to take chances and do the things that feel scary.

If you feel in a rut of life, or if you just want to read a really good book, I recommend you pick this up. It’s inspired me, it might inspire you.

R/