Eleven Minutes (Book review)

One of my passion is reading and spending time at any bookstore (at least once a week). I know..I know (pretty nerdy) BUT….there are just sooooo many great books out there and so much information waiting to be explored… ( sorry i don’t mean to make excuses for being nerdy …..lol)…..back to the matter at hand, Mr. Coelho.

In case you are not familiar, Paulo Coehlo is a Brazilian Novelist who has written  over 10 excellent books. This is my third book I’m reading by him. To date his  most acclaimed book is The Alchemist , I’m sure some of you may have heard of it. Anyway, I started reading this book on last Thursday (its Tuesday) today, I’m am half way done and i must say that it is a really great book. Its pretty easy to get through, and i think many people (young, old, male, female) can relate to it. So far, the central theme seems to be self doubt, Religion, confronting our own prejudices and exploring the nature of sex and love… (for now)

The story is about Maria a young Brazilian woman who after 2 very simple  brushes with “love” is left  heartbroken. The story opens up with Maria in Brazil as a young girl  and eventually we follow Maria as she becomes a Prostitute in Switzerland and it develops from there.

I’m done reading this book and I liked, I felt a little lost at the end though. I noticed that Paulo Coelho’s books there is usually no real climax, his books just sort of fade out to the end. I don’t know if i know what the take home message is. I didn’t feel that the novel came full circle. I think what i liked about it is that he challenges his readers to take a closer look and that nothing is really as it seems.  It is a love story and the connection that exists when two souls become one.

I would recommend this book but you have to think about what you are reading and try not to miss a beat with this one.

and here are the memorable line i love from the book and from Maria’s Diary…

1. All my life, I thought of love as some kind of voluntary enslavement… Freedom only exists when love is present. The person who gives him or herself wholly, the person who feels freest, is the person who loves the most.

2. When we meet someone and fall in love, we have a sense that the whole universe is on our side… And yet if something goes wrong, there is nothing left! How is it possible for the beauty that was there only minutes before to vanish so quickly? Life moves very fast. It rushes from heaven to hell in a matter of seconds.

3. …but something always went wrong, and the relationship would end precisely at the moment when she was sure that this was the person with whom she wanted to spend the rest of her life. After a long time, she came to the conclusion that men brought only pain, frustration, suffering and a sense of time dragging.

4. The power of beauty: what must the world be like for ugly women?

5. “Despite her apparent freedom, her life consisted of endless hours spent waiting for a miracle, for true love, for an adventure with the same romantic ending she had seen in films and read about in books.  A writer once said that it is not time that changes a man, nor knowledge; the only thing that can change someone’s mind is love.  What nonsense!  The person who wrote that clearly knew only one side of the coin.  Love was undoubtedly one of the things capable of changing a person’s whole life, from one moment to the next.  But there was the other side of the coin, the second thing that could make a human being take a totally different course from the one he or she had planned; and that was called despair.  Yes, perhaps love really could transform someone, but despair did the job more quickly.

“I love you, but I just dont like you anymore”

Just a warning..this is going to be an emo post..

So here we go…

I’ve been having the blues the past few days..blame it on the weather, hormones, an impending birthday, stress or whatever..I don’t quite know what

I’ve always prided myself as being a happy, mostly glass half full kinda person

And to be perfectly honest, I like to think I am strong enough to get through whatever crap happens..if not, then at the least, resilient enough to endure til it passes and come through mostly whole at the end of whatever it may be

But the past few days, or week have been super overwhelming, and frustrating and I’m just not HAPPY!

I’m unsettled and as close to miserable as I can get

I woke up on Saturday and looked out the window to a dreary, grey morning, after a not very pleasant week

..and I just wanted to cry…cry and to have someone comfort me a little and tell me I’d be ok

I scrolled through my ENTIRE phone list and I couldn’t find ONE person I could talk to that would comfort me

Of course, that discounted a couple of people I knew were asleep..and others where the time difference would have made it an ungodly hour to call

I sent messages to one or two people, just in case they weren’t free to talk

Then I did cry..quietly to myself, into my pillows…with everything that was wrong, that made me sad, swirling around in my head like a maelstorm..silly things, things I normally don’t allow to get me down..

Things like

..the utter conviction that I am going to be forever on the fringes, never belonging anywhere

…that there will never be anyone who cares for me, loves me for me and will be there for me

..the thought that I’d run out of time before I would ever be able to hold my own baby

..that there will never again, be someone I could wake up to each morning, and see smiling at me sleepily before we start the day

..that I will never find the place I can feel is a refuge, a home, somewhere I am at peace and safe

..that I will never make enough money to do all the things I need to, fulfill all the responsibilities I have to

..that I cannot do all the things I need to do at work and still have a life..I don’t want to have to give up one for the other, I want both

..that I will always feel as alone as I did at that exact moment

Yup…the glass emptied itself out completely in those moments..and everything just got too much..and there was no one there but me to get myself out ( a point which I fail to remember is..it’s always been me having to get myself out, but sometimes, I’m just not strong enough to and I just can’t)

It went away in the end…it always does..if you last out the tears till the numb sets in, you can put all the disturbing, upsetting, sad thoughts back into the box they came out of and lock them away for a bit

But you know what…someone sent a message back to me…I don’t know if anyone can figure out who it is…but for just an instant (before I could shut the box again)…and with just one line, brought home everything that I didn’t have:

I’m good…I’m home with the family…. Hope all is ok with you

Outside looking in…

Oh well…I’ll just need to create something else for me I suppose

I hope I can

I manage to let a friend of mine say Happy Birthday to his loving father verbally via video :) 

The Goal

I never appreciated Soccer/Football i feel like it is boring… a sports that is played too long.. if i see a soccer/football match on tv it makes me sick seeing people screaming, yelling, fitting over blue or red team… coincidentally my “special someone” is one of the players of the Philippines UFL (United Football League) i don’t have any choice but to watch, support, scream, yell and understand how the damn game works!!! :)

GOD doesn’t expect the impossible from us, he wants us to expect the impossible from him

Take me to the BEACH…. I’m waiting for SUMMER