I just finished reading this book called Tuesdays with Morrie. Mitch Albom wrote it. Do you know him? He's the writer of The Five People You Meet in Heaven. I have never read that book before, but maybe I will. I got Tuesdays with Morrie from a used bookstore on Lakeshore Boulevard which name I don't even remember. And I don't think I'm going to try to remember. My mind is pretty occupied with so many other things. I got that book because... I don't even know. Maybe because it was only $3? A new one from Indigo would have cost me almost $10. Oh my. The book was in a pretty well-maintained conditioned, too. So I grabbed it from the shelf and paid for it. Oh, I got it maybe because I heard (or read) somewhere that whatever Mitch Albom wrote, it was supposed to inspire the people reading it. And I think it's right.
I got the book last year, maybe around Christmas last year. It was almost a year that I kept it away on my "bookshelf". I put quotation marks around it because I don't really have one, it's just a small cardboard box that I use to keep all my notebooks and books. I didn't have the initiation to start reading it. I just didn't have time. But when I did, I suddenly didn't want to. I spent my time on my laptop, staring at things that I wish I could have or places I wish I could be. What a shame, I should've started reading it sooner.
The book was an easy-read. It wasn't exactly a page-turner... because at the end you would know that Morrie was going to leave this world eventually. I was only curious about what he had to say to the writer on those Tuesdays they had. Did the writer really learn something from Morrie? Up until maybe page 40 I still didn't know that this book was based on a true story. That Morrie Schwartz really said all those things he did while trying hard to take a breath in between his words, coughing stuff out of his lungs, crying because his best friend was there. I honestly got bored by the first 100 pages of the book. Maybe because I had expected Morrie's words to be really philosophical and deep, or maybe really touching and life-changing. But they were actually really simple. Some of their conversations were kind of tedious too. I wanted to skip those and move on, but I stayed and kept reading instead. I wanted to find the things that maybe I could highlight, things I could learn from Mitch's dying, old professor whom he hadn't seen for 16 years. I did eventually.
The last 3 chapters made my eyes damp. Too bad I was at school and people were around, so I couldn't just let my tears flow. I didn't want to have to wipe my eyes in front of people. So whenever I'm on the verge of tears in public, I always force myself to yawn as a disguise. I think I was really touched by The Twelfth Tuesday: We Talk About Forgiveness. He said, "It's not just other people we need to forgive, ... We need to forgive ourselves. ... For all the things we didn't do ... we should have done. You can't get stuck on the regrets of what should have happened.". Wow Morrie, you passed away long ago but still you could touch this one person who is living years and years after you died.
It's easy to forgive others... yes? No. It's really not, but it's definitely easier than having to forgive myself. I once read somewhere, how can you forgive if you can't forget? Well, I don't know but it certainly works the other way around for me. I've forgiven, it's just forgetting that's really, really hard. I don't want to be reminded of things, I don't want to be able to remember. I just want to forget and detach myself forever from what had happened. And it really is hard. If Lacuna Inc. from Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet's movie were real, I'd probably have gone there and gotten some parts of my memory erased as a Christmas gift to myself. Too bad it's not real! Hehe. But still, I think that the core of the problem is that I haven't forgiven myself... I'm so sure that the moment I'm able to forgive myself, I will be able to forget. I'll try my hardest. For the sake of myself. And you, too. Like what Morrie said, "Make peace. You need to make peace with yourself and everyone around you."
