I’m about 2/3 of the way through Stephen King‘s Hearts in Atlantis and I am surprised by how much I am enjoying it. The last few King novels… I don’t know… I just couldn’t inhale them like I did everything else he’s written. I never finished Insomnia or the last one in the Dark Tower series and didn’t even bother to start Bag of Bones. I really liked The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon though. When I finish Hearts in Atlantis I will probably grab Bag of Bones and see if I can get into it. I certainly don’t believe that my inability to finish his recent works has anything to do with any decline in quality. I think I still have my copy of Insomnia so maybe I’ll see about plodding my way through that too. There are a few references — !? — to the Dark Tower plot line(s) in Hearts in Atlantis and I feel almost guilty for not finishing the last one. When I read the first gunslinger tale I was hooked and in love with the whole concept and then it just sort of faded away for me. Or maybe it was just that I faded away. Somehow or another it’s like I owe it to King to read everything he writes. It’s odd because I’ve read almost everything by Hemingway and almost everything by Robert B. Parker, but I don’t feel bad in the least about not having consumed them completely. Why do I feel that way about King? I don’t know.
More on reading: I read No One Here Gets Out Alive a few years before the Oliver Stone movie the Doors was released. I thought it was fabulous and I was enthralled by the idea of Jim Morrison. I wish I could say I was enthralled by the writing of Jim Morrison or the music of Jim Morrison, but I can’t. I was just awestruck by the concept of Jim Morrison. Get it?
There was this entry by Melanizer that I read on this site. She said her boyfriend treated her like a queen and that they would be happy forever. I almost cried when I read it, because I know what it is like to feel that. I thought I too, had the perfect boyfriend. Our relationship started three years ago…
He took complete care of me, told me all the time that I was the most gorgeous girl of all time and that he would love me forever. He talked to me for hours every day on im and on the phone. He took me shopping all the time and showered me with treats, whatever I wanted. I stayed with his family over school breaks, the summers and even worked at the same job with him. He found my birth family (I’m adopted) and flew down with me to meet them and even talked to my father (the one who raised me) about if he could marry me. He talked non stop about marrying me and would send me pictures of rings he thought I might like. I wasn’t ready for marriage and he was cool with that, he just desperately wanted that and was willing to wait.
Like every good story (I am a writer and know a lot about plots) there must be an evil force. That evil force was (and is) his huge overbearing and controlling family. They used to always say things about me behind me back and I began to have to make him stand up for me! Finally he realized how scary they were and moved out. It was wonderful… just us. Unfortunately because of money, he moved back. And now, somehow his memory of the past has vanished and he loves them more than me. Just the other day I was with his family, his cousin wanted to take a family picture… she asked me to be out of it. Andrew and I have been dating three freaking years and she didn’t want me in the picture! His brother’s girlfriend of two years and his cousin’s wife have both left him, leaving me the only girlfriend in the family and yet I couldn’t be in the picture? Andrew did not say anything in objection. Best part? He later told me that his mom had told him earlier about how his cousin wanted in the picture and it had “slipped his mind”.
I cry all the time because now he forgets to call when he used to talk to me for six hours on the phone. He doesn’t want to take me out when he used to take me out every day. I’ll be in the house, sitting in a room alone, hearing him talk to everyone else. Three years ago today he was crying on the phone because of how much he loved me… and now? Now I’m all alone again, in a loveless relationship and I look like a fool. I poured so much of my life away, emotionally, physically and spiritually, how will I ever share that again with anyone else? I thought he was the one and I trusted him, every word he said.