The Human Thing

"It's funny. You love something and then one day it's suddently gone or changed or lost forever. But somehow that doesn't stop your love. Maybe that's how you know it's the real thing. When it doesn't come with conditions and get-out clauses, when it doesn't have a best-by date. When you just give your love, and never stop giving it, and know that you never will. That's when its real. That's when they can never touch it or spoil it or take it away from you."

I just finished reading a book called One for My Baby by a British man named Tony Parsons. This book has taken me through the full gamet of emotions in the past 3 days. I was reading on the train coming home Sunday and out of the blue, burst out in tears crying! A few minutes later I was laughing aloud. It was so strange, but you name the emotion, I've felt it along with Alfie (the main character). I recommend this book to anyone at all. A lot of it touched me because I can relate to Alfie as a fellow ex-pat living in Asia. Only difference is he was from London living in Hong Kong and I'm American living in Japan.

At one point...I started to cry contemplating how my own love with BB is going to work out. Knowing how it is to love someone so deeply and watch them leave your life. I cried for my unborn children. I cried for my sick grandmother and my hardworking parents. I cried for people who want a better life than the one they have and the things they have to do to make a living for their familes. Then I just sat and I cried. Letting it all out. Crying. . .but not depressed or low spirited type of cry. A sympathetic and loving cry. A cry that helped me realize that I am more sensitive than I was when I first arrived in this strange country. A cry that reinforced what people have told me, that I am a different person than I was 3 years ago. I love more. I feel more. I'm open to more. And hell, I cry a little more too.

Read this book. It's real life shit. That's what I love about it. The characters are not all slim, beautiful, rich, movie star/model types or loaded business folks (although a few are in there as minor characters). This book is about life shit and "the human thing" as Parsons calls it.

Tony Parsons you have a true talent for capturing real life. Very rare and much appreciated. Thank you.