"Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter- tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther"-The Great Gatsby
So it all started because of Great Expectations. I’m must have been really depressed and disappointed the night I wrote this post. This is probably not good to admit, but I lied; I never finished Great Expectations. I literally just slammed the book on the floor after Estella flatly rejected Pip without a sliver of remorse. I then proceeded to Sparknoting the rest of the novel and eating my soul. I was quite in the pits. I was emotionally distressed that I had invested so much hope in Pip and Estella to just be crushed in a foul swoop. Then came the revelation: Screw Charles Dickens. I’m going to watch/read a real love story (It’s not to say that Great Expectations was really a love story in the first place. But telling myself this somewhat helped me to get out of the pit of depression I was in).
That’s when my first Winter Break Obsession broke out. Commence the Jane Eyre Obession. So after posting The Great Expectations post, I went on a rampage and scoured the internet for good romantic books and movies. I finally settled on “Jane Eyre” and I coaxed my mother, despite her complaints, into driving me to the local Ingles so I could rent the new Jane Eyre movie from the RedBox. Luckily, New Year’s Eve gave me a good reason to stay up past 12 AM, and I ended up being a moppy, sobby teenager for the next two hours while I vegetated in front of my computer, enjoying a real love story.
Turns out, the movie had better effects on me than I had ever imagined. Not only were my spirits up and Great Expectations a far, distant memory, but I dedicated the whole next day to reading Jane Eyre, rightfully neglecting all my duties, responsibilities, and engagements I had that day. For the next 5 hours, Literature.org was my best friend. I blazed through the chapters at lightning speed and not even my mom could tear me from my computer. I felt invincible.
After finishing the book that night, I realized I hadn’t had enough of it. I then proceeded to printing all my favorite chapters and wasting half the printer paper in my house in the process. (After I found out my sister owned a copy of Jane Eyre, I suffered through my parents’ angry reprimands when they discovered half their printer paper was gone. Just so they know, I recycled all that paper a week later.) I was completely ready to spend hours into the night rereading Jane Eyre again, but my parents told me to go to sleep. I thought it unwise to disobey them considering I did use up their printer paper. I remember I was particularly restless that night. I couldn’t sleep. In fact, I didn’t even want to sleep; all I wanted to do was read Jane Eyre. I rolled in bed for what seemed like an eternity, waiting for morning to come. When 5 AM finally rolled around, I bolted out of my bed and commenced devouring my favorite chapters. I was a hermit again that day. It wasn’t a very healthy lifestyle considering I only went out of my room to eat and check FaceBook, but at that time, reality was not life but Jane Eyre.
This kind of behavior continued for a few days. When the Jane Eyre started to die off, I was enveloped into the Winter Break Obsession #2. The Michael Fassbender Obsession. I never mentioned that while I was watching Jane Eyre, I began to become infatuated with Rochester. In other words, the actor who plays Rochester, Michael Fassbender. For those of you who don’t know who he is, here’s a video:
His attractiveness never really dawned on me at first, but it crept on me slowly. If someone had asked me a few months ago if I thought he man was attractive, I might have frowned and said “no”. If I hadn’t seen him in Jane Eyre, I might have thrown him off as an older-than-he-looks-30ish-old-actor-who-smokes. But I think the thing that did it in for me was his laugh. It’s. so. freaking. contagious.
So basically the Michael Fassbender obsession gladly took over the former Jane Eyre Obsession. At first I just kept watching “Jane Eyre” until I was absolutely sick of it. Some may say that Toby Stephens was the best Rochester. WELL NOT FOR ME. Anyway, this obsession progressed to watching all his movies. “X-Men: First Class”. “Fish Tank”. “Angel”. “Centurion”. “Eden Lake”. Granted, my hermit-like behavior persisted throughout. It almost came to the point when I had to have my daily dose of Michael Fassbender every day or else I’d sit in a corner and mope.
When I recollect on these days, I imagine them as the happiest, solitary days that I’ve had in a while. Sure they may sound weird, obsessive, and unhealthy, but they’re a lot better than stressing over college and school, which impart far worse psychological damage to a person. Those were the days when my reality was drawn in a book or a movie. But all goods things come to an end. My 9-day obsession came to a flat end when school started again. It was like I was flying in the sky with a balloon attached to me when someone just went and popped it……and I fell like a rock all the way back to reality. The reality of life.
