#PlayInMay Raw: The Fault In Our Stars

Hey y'all!

Today the Axis of Ineptitude wants me to be Raw.  Unfortunately, perhaps, that's exactly what I'm going to be.  I have some stuff to talk about that is deeply personal and I'm not entirely sure as I write this that I will be able to push the Publish button, or that I'll be able to leave it posted if I do.  Also, nail art.

I suppose I should preface this all by saying that I read this book in less than 24 hours.  For me that's not exactly a record or particularly uncommon, but I think it speaks to how compelling the book is.  I am not going to write a review, because there are many places to find reviews and they'll probably be far better than any I could write.  Suffice it to say that it is the story of two teenagers with different forms of cancer, and it is a charming love story above all else.  On that basis alone, you should know whether this is the type of thing you want to read.  As much as I loved this book, I cannot preach it to you because I know better.  I know that not everyone will feel it.

“Sometimes, you read a book and it fills you with this weird evangelical zeal, and you become convinced that the shattered world will never be put back together unless and until all living humans read the book.”
-John Green, The Fault In Our Stars

If you're not the reading type, the movie comes out June 6 and I have no idea whether it will be any good.  I'm a book girl and these types of stories tend to speak better to me in novel form, just as sci-fi tends to speak more to me on the screen with all the pretties.  I also wish that I could say that I read this book because the subject matter called to me, or because I have a personal connection to childhood cancer, or had even read anything else by this author.  I can't say any of those things, because the real reason I read it was... well...

I downloaded it out of masochism.

Raw truth:  I live with an anxiety/depression disorder, and part of that is that my brain doesn't always let me feel things when I need to feel them.  Emotionally, I am a bit broken - typically unable to feel things very much past the surface, and occasionally completely overwhelmed by emotions that seemingly come from nowhere.  Of late, my anxiety has been building and I feel like my body needs some kind of emotional release that my brain isn't willing or able to provide right now, so I deliberately read a sad book in hopes that it would make me cry.

"That's the thing about pain; it demands to be felt."

Raw truth:  It did make me cry.  For about 5 minutes.  Not at the end of the book, but somewhere within that last 50 pages, the wall inside me broke and my body shuddered and sighed, and finally my eyes expressed the emotion that my mind had tried to seal up.  I wept for young love, and I wept for unrealized potential, and I wept for the ability to feel things as they come, wave after wave of unbridled sorrow and joy and anger and fear and love.  Then, as suddenly as I started, I stopped.  When my brain realized what my body was doing, it sent the signal to cut it out, and suddenly I found myself cut off from the pain that I needed to feel to release the pressure inside me.

There was a time when I could feel these things to their full extent, and as a result I became a rather bitter, sarcastic little shell of unhappiness.  In an effort to change that, I broke my emotional faucet somehow, so that in repressing my rage and sorrow and fear, I also suppressed my joy and my love, and as such, sometimes the people that I care about suffer by my inability to adequately or completely demonstrate my feelings for them. 

“The world is not a wish-granting factory.”

Raw truth:  When I wanted for silly things as a child, my grandmother used to tell me "You can want in one hand and poop in the other, and see which gets filled first."  As a kid, it just made me giggle.  As an adult, that saying has stuck with me.  When I see the hurt that my separation causes, or hear the hurt in my husband's voice as he responds to my cold reactions, I wish that I could change.  I wish that I could be "normal."  I can work towards fulfilling that desire, the same way I could work towards earning money to buy myself something expensive that I want.  However, the reality is sometimes, you just don't get what you wish for.  For that reality, I can only apologize and offer to keep trying. 

Enough with my own self-aggrandizing ramblings about my demons.  I'm fairly certain a lot of you will just skip past all that to get to the nail art, so here goes.

I created this manicure in tribute to The Fault In Our Stars and its inspiration is drawn from two specific quotes in the book, it's cover art, and the only description of how the main character keeps her nails. 

Polishes used:  Accessorize unnamed medium blue, OPI Incognito in Sausalito, China Glaze Liquid Leather, Pure Ice Superstar!, Barry M White nail art pen, Models Own Black nail art pen, Sally Hansen Big Matte top coat.

 “Maybe okay will be our always.”

“Some infinities are bigger than other infinities.”   

Looking for the whole list of prompts? They are in text form and image so you can Come Play In May!