ther'll be roses

you know that kind of story that starts out sad? you read the first chapter of the book or watch the first scene of the movie & you start to realize that before this story began, everything had already gone wrong? i've found myself in one of those stories.

last night, my grandpa popped popcorn & poured 2 glasses of diet coke, & he & i went downstairs & stuck the movie "the secret garden" into the vcr. (wow - that is definitly a scenario i couldn't have imagined a few months ago!). he sat on the couch & i sat in a chair, we each curled up under our blankets, & watched the movie. it's a kids movie & i think both of us were much more into it than either of us care to admit. grandpa said at least 10 times "this is a GREAT story," & i spent most of the 2 hours with wide eyes, watching the video as if this story was the only thing that could validate my existence. (i tend to get a little overdramatic at times. i also tend to get really into a good movie. so sue me.)

how do you live in a story that starts out with everything going wrong? where key characters have disappeared, only to show up in dreams, & memories, & portraits hung behind curtains? where people are lonely or despairing or hypochondriacs? where people have been so hurt that they refuse to love?

i guess if you want to take this secret garden analogy a little too far, it goes past my own little life & the things that have gone wrong for me, to where we all live in that kind of story, where everything went wrong before this story ever started. you know, adam & eve & satan, & what not.

i don't have any answers to these "how shall we then live?" questions, but these are the things that i'm thinking about lately. i always love a good story that reminds me i am not alone.