The Notebook

A few years back, in my self-imposed solitary lifestyle, I wandered along the mall near my place. In typical routine, I popped into the only 2nd hand bookstore in the building. I never really cared very much for the store since they don't normally have much of a collection, it's a lot of sci-fi stacks, Japanese manga and Danielle Steel yellowed-pages love novels and so on. I don't even remember the name of the store which bothers me at times since I have an irresistible urge to pigeonhole everything I see, do, know, feel into special memory boxes in my head.

Anyway, I found a small, paperback called The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks. Not the regular book I'm used to reading but I picked it up and I fell in love with it. I am still in love with the story until today. I have watched the movie so many times that I can traced the moment visually in my head when N pulled and kissed A by the pier in the rain as he shouted, "it's not over then, it's not over now!"

It's the only Sparks book I've ever read. Really. I've never attempted to read another just so I could prolong the sanctity and sacredness of this one just a little bit longer. The Notebook holds a special place in the confines of my heart and my soul. It has taught me to relive the love I've had before and to remember the ones that have occupied me in between. I learned to cherish the love in the past, to breathe in the moments of ecstacy, to sear every moment in memory, to cry and grief, and to look forward to love in the future. Last Friday, when Tim and I celebrated our 2 years together, I thought of this book and I smiled. I told him so. I know why I bought the book then and I understood what it meant now.

In The Notebook, N wrote to A for 365 days since they parted in summer. She never responded to any of the letters and in the final letter, he wrote,

"The reason it hurts so much to separate is because our souls were connected. Maybe they always have and will be. Maybe we've lived a thousand lives before this one and in each of them we've found each other. And maybe each time, we've been forced apart for the same reasons. That means that this goodbye is both goodbye for the past ten thousand years and a prelude to what will come.

When I look at you, I see your charm and your gentleness and know they have grown stronger with every life you have lived. And I know I have spent every life before this one searching for you. Not someone like you, but you, for your soul and mine must always come together. And then, for some reason neither of us understands we were forced to to say goodbye.

I would love to tell you that everything will work out for us, and I promise to do all I can to make sure it does. But if we never meet again and this is truly goodbye, I know we will see each other again in another life. We will find each other again and maybe the stars will have changed, and we will not only love each other in that time but for all the times we had before".