Theloopylululog

One Day.

A darling of a book. So dear to me, it has it’s own diaphanous room in my memory palace. Far away from the rest of life’s birdsong and cacophony. The light of memory streaking it with mauve and gold with a light drizzle ever so often; a balm to the hardening grief it left in it’s wake.

An ending that had me curl into a ball, knees to my chest like a baby ready to bawl it’s eyes out. Leaving me with a chasm so deep, it still hurts.

A couple whose childish antics I cheered, cursing them for their imbecility and indecisiveness, waited patiently as suspense came creeping up my back for them to burn their irrational fears and just get the hell together and for once STAY!

Just as I took a big sigh of relief and wiped a stray drop of sweat away, DING…goes down the curtain.

I still remember the warm afternoon I turned it’s last page. I was lying in my favorite place, on my favorite mat, head cozy on my favorite pillow. Turned askew to the left, to catch the light of the window on the turning pages, the dying words caught my breath in my throat. I gasped.

Noooooo. This ain’t happening! This can’t be. Not now…not after all these years of waiting…THIS IS NOT FAIR!!

I didn’t cry.I was left in a rage against a man I didn’t even know. I sent out wild rants into the air, against the unfairness of it all. Cursing the author bitterly.

Then I wept.

Silence took over my next few weeks. Numbed to the veins, I couldn’t get back to living my life like I do. It took me months to go back to another book.

Grief and disillusionment grew in my body. Making me a tree shedding poisonous tears.

16 years later, here I am still wishing the book had ended differently.

Believe me you, I am NOT one to wish a change on the endings of a book. Because I author the 2.0 versions of every damn book I read. The story continues in my head from wherever the original author of the book closes out his version. Don’t mind me saying but there are millions of characters waltzing their way in and out of my head to this day. In perpetual continuum like a Rolex.

It is rare for me to say this, but if I could somehow change the ending of any book written, it would have to be One Day by David Nicholls.

A book about the complexities of human relationships. Missed conversations, missed opportunities of expressing deep felt emotions, missed timing, wrong choices, egocentric living, and a friendship that stands the test of time.

A book about fated relationships. Ever had that one person you keep going back to, no matter how cloudy the days of your life are, how matted the hairs of your choices are and how obnoxiously brooding your decisions turn out to be?

A mate your soul is fated to meet across timelines and dimensions. A friend you hate to love. A companion you love to hate.

Yet…there they are. The one your eyes rest themselves on as they slowly slurp the deep meaning of your life wondering…why all you see your life as is a soggy biscuit dunked into a tea cup when it’s actually an aurora borealis stumping the minds off all the scientists of the world!

This book is about them. A pair of madcaps who meet suddenly, part suddenly and meet the same day every year for 20 long years.

Yearning. Longing. Waiting.

Waiting for the other to express what they cannot.

Waiting for each other.

Waiting for home…

A connection that sparks instantly yet takes 20 years to settle into a relationship.

A couple that feels the love between them in the first instant but needs 2 decades of running away from each other to finally recognise the home they sought was always right in front of them.

If ever there was a cat and mouse game I enjoyed other than Tom and Jerry, it’s Emma and Dexter’s tale of dipping into each other’s life, one day per year at a time.

Their love grows on you like a small bonsai tree and by the end of the book it has left you with a baobab that stands through time and eternity.

I love tragedy. I do. I have a thing for weeping at endings…books, series, movies, songs… Trust me I do. I LOVE a good cry.

So why I wish One Day had a different ending?

It is possibly the only book that has no 2.0 version in my head. I have been so numbed out since that afternoon 16 years ago that I could never go back to reading it again…never go beyond the tragedy to rewrite my version of their story in continuum.

Emma and Dexter are still waiting for a chance. And I want to give them their happy ending. They deserve it.

I deserve it!