28. Existential colors

Alle Farben meines Lebens by Cecilia Ahern made me think about some things I used to think about a lot.

I used to be trapped inside big existential questions, about why and where and how. As I child, I used to wish to be a cat or a dog, in exchange for my nature. At that time, I was not completely aware of what nature that was. Just wanted to get rid of that heaviness I used to feel, the loneliness, the burden of being. I was looking around me, my kind did not go too far, did not see much, did not know much. My kind were trapped in the obnoxious daily hunger and the struggle to silence it. My kind lost its mind and its soul.

I was crying looking in a dog's eye, begging to be it.

This book talks about feeling lonely, being different but also at home, among strangers. The main character discovers one day, in a rather cruel way you'll read about in the book, that she can see the colors of the other people. The color of their emotions. Her family is consisting of a sick mother, a small brother who is absorbing all the debris emotions of the mother, and the big brother who managed to concoct a plan and escape the ordeal. Only a sick, lonely, drunk mother can put her kids through such an ordeal. It is heartbreaking at times to read about a child having to become a parent, when the parent has lost the mind and the connection to the reality, the connection to sanity.

While reading, I liked that we don't only see the amazing part of this "gift". We as readers are also witnessing the times when this girl lives inside her body as if in a prison, afraid of what it can do. She doesn't know how to handle herself at first. In time, she learns to understand the meaning behind those colors, how to interact and become a chameleon so that she could be liked, which is useful when making your way in life. She does that courageously.

Every book that reminds me of a younger version of myself, brings up all the mistakes I did, and also the way I learned to overcome them. And so I have to ask myself now when the book has been read, the story has become part of my consciousness - what version of myself am I to know? What scares me? The same old fears - cold, the madness in the streets, human anger, the agony of life?