Ultra-violet

 

"I know how people gently push you forward so that you move ahead, and they don't hurt you. But you need shoving, not pushing. And I will do that."

“You are all the colors in one, at full brightness.”

_Theodore Finch

. . . 

The most endearing character from any book that Jennifer Niven has written is Theodore Finch.

And Theodore Finch says,

"We will Graduate from high school soon; we all will leave this city. Don't you wanna know what this city has?"

It's soooo natural and neural and genuinely appropriate to question.

Sometimes I just want to hang on to these books, these Novels no matter how depressing they may be. And what is depression if it isn't questioning what most people choose to ignore. If it isn't letting yourself question the choices, you are constantly making for yourself while being under the influence of someone else. If it isn't questioning the very thought that God exists, love exists because in my experience of these years I feel the ones not driven by the force to love are happier than ever.

Does it mean eventually love is hurting? Or that no matter what you do you can't love people as much as you can miss them? Who knows? Like Jane Austen said, 

" If I loved you less, I could write more about you."

But these books know, these books have words written that know. However sad they maybe be at least someone; some fictional character is living the life we always dream of. And the thing about these novels is that it’s always some person who is overthinking, who is reluctant to move anywhere while the other one is trying to normalize everything. But the writers never label it. They never label the character as maniac, or suicidal, or bipolar. They leave it on us to decide because we are going to read how their mind works and as soon as you read how the mind of a maniac/bipolar/anxious person works you eventually realize that it’s not their fault it’s the fault of people around; people who want to label it as one thing. Because as Theodore Finch says labelling is just a way to get away with the thoughts as an illness. It’s true.

Sometimes I wonder if I have something like that, something that needs labelling. Maybe. I remember February of class 9^th when I first looked up at the symptoms of bipolar disorder hoping I have it, given the fact it took me just 1 week to get over that tragedy, a tragedy which I thought would kill me that day. I thought something was wrong in me mentally, that I couldn’t feel the pain I felt that particular day when I just heard someone explain to me what life really is. But when I am writing this today, I think maybe the pain never left. It just hid behind the curtains.

9/10 symptoms were in me that time and it strangely felt relieving. I thought I am getting “definable” again but apparently, I was just labeling it; and instead of googling “how to cure it”, I was searching “how can people understand others with this disorder” because maybe I was “obviously selfish” all along or maybe I just accepted the fact I can’t be healthy ever again but still…I knew I can get back to what I was, and I knew someone would help me. I just wanted it to be easy for that “someone” to help me. Obviously selfish, maybe. The way people say suicide is a selfish act maybe the same way. But you can’t give gaining attention as the reason to die because people eventually forget you. I know. They forget; just like I do sometimes. Everyone moves on because they must, you can’t stand being planted at the one place, the one moment you like. But the deal is most of the times moving on feels guilty and getting stuck feels immature.

Sometimes I want to dissipate, disappear. Just slowly blur out from the lives of people around me. I don’t want to die, no. I want to go to that alternate world where everything was just right, and people weren’t mean to anyone. But I can’t say that loud; I can’t say I want to disappear because people will always mistake disappear for dying. They are different words(maybe), they have different meanings (maybe).

When you read the real-life stories of the people who tried, survived their attempts, they never label it unlike other people. They always find that step as a way to relieve others from the agony of living with them rather than a way to end their own sufferings. Theodore dies after Violet gets to know him and the version of him which was totally different from the version whom she fell in love with and rather more different version from the version who saved her life and made her love life. So she asks him to take help from parents , teachers as most people would suggest; but here’s the thing:

All a “labeled” person sometimes need is to hide their label behind the love and to acknowledge it. To stay here and to run away. To believe they are healing while constantly scraping the wound out again.

So, he wanted her to pay attention to his shity version, to get the answer to that question,“ Does she love me as I am with all my 100 personalities, or only the one version she first saw?” and when she said “Yes” to all the versions and loved him as a whole, he realized he’s being obviously selfish. And what’s more hurtful than realizing that?

It’s the moment he realizes that his “label” is becoming a label in the life of someone he loves. People don’t hate someone and kill themselves, no. That’s not true. Maybe people kill themselves because they love people who should not be treated that way. For Theodore it was a method of liberation. And honestly if I ask you , what is stopping you today to do something you always wanted to do? What is stopping you to just run away to a “where” or “who” ?

Isn’t it the fact that you know there is a tomorrow? That maybe the spontaneous decision of today will affect your tomorrow? That maybe this will become a mistake of your life if there comes a tomorrow.

So, isn’t life limiting?

If I were to die tomorrow maybe. If I were to die tomorrow... maybe today, I'll go and wander. But the fact I somehow know I am alive, and life is there. It just stops me from doing. Theodore is just that force we all need in our life to do what we want and that is not socially acceptable. And I guess, maybe that's why he dies.

It's when you decide there's no future, no tomorrow that you start acting in the present as if it's the last day; and the more you think about the future...you will always find a tomorrow to delay things.

And for Violet Markey, well you can say she did everything she could have; that it’s not her fault; that she did not do anything wrong. But the answers will always be,

“I did not do everything I could have to save him.”

“If I was the only person knowing about the ‘label’ then maybe it is…my fault that I did not save him.”

“I did not do anything wrong…but I also did not do what was right.”

And isn’t that the point? That not doing right hurts more than doing wrong. For all-time favorite statement that  people say, “You should not regret that incident.”

Well, people always regret things they did not do right. Always. and I wonder if my epitaph will say the same.

 

_S.K.

 

 

. . .

“At exactly 9:47 a.m., Pluto would pass directly behind Jupiter, in relation to the earth. This was a rare alignment that meant the combined gravitational force of those two planets would exert a stronger tidal pull, which would temporarily counteract gravity here on earth and make people weigh less. He called this the Jovian-Plutonian gravitational effect.'... ... But I bring it up to let you know that this is the way I feel right now. Like Pluto and Jupiter are aligned with the earth and I'm floating.

You are my Jovian-Plutonian gravitational effect.”

_All the Bright Places