A 232

"A 232" won't make sense if you haven't read the book; actually, odds are good that it won't make sense even if you have.

All I know is that I'd finally picked up the book I'd inexplicably been incapable of finishing, and then I read a paragraph that made me want to throw the book down onto my bed and yell, "THAT'S IT! EXACTLY!"

I didn't. But I came quite close. Instead, I jumped out of bed, plodded barefoot into another room in my apartment and held out the book. When my flatmate took it, I jabbed my finger onto a page with a silent command. READ.

Sometimes it's easy -- natural, even -- to feel as if an experience or mentality is exclusive to yourself alone. There can't be anyone out there who has gone through it, because it is feels so unique, personalized to you -- for better or worse. Sure, people might have come close, but they didn't really get it - not the frustration and stress somehow still laced with optimism. You're left wondering what the hell is wrong with you for your to quasi-willingly subject yourself to the absurdity of it all.

You just can't quite shake it when you try to. A moment will just come along when you realize that you already have.

I'd like to think that perhaps there was something inherent within the 200-odd pages I'd already read that suggested that this particular insight would appear. That's why I held off on finishing the book -- I waited until I was primed for it, ready to agree wholeheartedly with what was being said.

It's more likely that I just didn't want to keep on reading right then. That I had other things to do and kept forgetting to bring the book with me on my travels.

But the timing was pretty crazy, as I'd come to the conclusion on my own about a week and a half prior. During a long drive that reduced to a standstill in Friday afternoon traffic. Crawling forward intermittently at five miles an hour gave me plenty of time to think (and curse other travelers, but that's neither here nor there). That moment came and passed and that was that.

And then, about a week and a half later, I read a paragraph that told me that it wasn't exclusive. The details were a little different, of course, but it wasn't particularly out of the ordinary or special.

It just was what it was.