persuasion.
Persuasion is my favourite Austen novel. Pride and Prejudice is overrated, Sense and Sensibility is lovely yet distant and Emma is hopeless mess that I can never finish.
Persuasion hits home the most. Anne has the stupidity of Emma, the common sense of Elinor and the spunk of Elizabeth and I hate her and love her and cry for her every time I read the book. I hate all of her lost chances and for god’s sake, to put it frankly: I don’t want to be Anne. I love her, but I don’t want to be her.
I wanted to do things, just like Anne did (even though we probably don’t want the same kinds of things) But still, I wanted all sorts of things. Things like singing and writing and translating. Things that I thought I would love enough so that the passion would keep me interested for a lifetime. I got shot down, because I either a) didn’t have the talent, despite my work ethic b) wouldn’t make any money or c) both a and b. Or maybe I just didn’t love them enough. That’s always something that I think about; maybe I just didn’t love what I thought I wanted so much.
Even if I wanted to work hard and give it everything I had, I was told that it wouldn’t work. It’s not like I have perpetual rain clouds above my head, I’m not cursed and I don’t walk under ladders, so why was I convinced that what I wanted would never work? Never is not something anyone can really say with any degree of certainty, especially in regards to the future, and I said it anyway. However, for me to say “I was told”, “I was convinced” or even “I was manipulated” implies that someone else did it to me. No. I did it to myself. Other people might have done the persuading but I made the choice, the final blow.
I know that everyone already knows this, but I’m scared. Not just because of tomorrow and next week, but because I’m scared that I don’t love anything enough. Or maybe I do, but I’ll let other people tell me that my “love” isn’t enough. I know other eighteen year olds and they seem to have so much passion and desire for at least one thing in their lives, be it politics or veganism or pop culture and I get scared that my love for something is not enough to rival someone else’s.
I’m scared that nothing about me is enough and that I’ll just change and change and change for everyone else, but not for myself.
