For You

My book is for you.  It doesn’t matter whether you read it or not, it’s still for you.  Don’t look over your shoulder to see who I’m talking to.  It’s you.  Especially you.  Only you.  My book is for the part of you that you hide from most of the world.  Like Beth, and like me, there is so much inside you that you work hard to contain.  Deep in your soul there is fear and longing, compassion and brilliance.  In your battered psyche there are painful open wounds and also miraculously healed spaces of lightness and joy.

My book is for you because of all the times you wished you could hear the thoughts in someone else’s head.  Because you know there is always way more than meets the eye.  And because you also know that as experienced and jaded as you may be, you would be stunned if you could hear people’s thoughts.  That’s why my book is for you, because Beth compelled me to invite you inside her/my/your/our world, with no holds barred.

Each character in my book is you and is also me, though none is any of us.  You are not in the book.  If you ever wonder, the answer is no.  She/he is not you.  There is so much more to you.  But then again, he/she is you, of course, because the separateness of humanity is an illusion.

I am not my protagonist Beth.  And I am.  Every day I am braver than Beth and every day I wish I had her courage.  We become different people in different moments.  Time is not linear, yet we cannot go back and change the things we wish we could.  I don’t know if Beth would undo what she did.  I would ask her if I could.  The book is a three-month snapshot of her life and her choices: a game-changing, identity-shifting, twisted, tormented, and glorious three months.

My book is for every woman or man who has craved passion and connection.  It’s for you because I know that you have weighed the risks of reaching for more versus the comfort of playing it safe.  My book is for the seeker in you, the lover of love in all its forms, sanctioned and forbidden.

My book is to help you see that you can forgive, whoever it is, whatever they did.  No matter the crime, when you open your heart to follow the journey of the perpetrator, you will understand how they arrived at their destination.  Everyone strays, in one way or another.  None of us can throw the first stone.

Finally, my book is for you because I have known that I wanted to be a writer for as long as I can remember.  But I didn’t answer the calling until I was forty-four years old.  You know something like that about yourself too and I urge you not to wait another minute.

These are all the reasons why my book is for you, just you.  It is a deeply intimate exchange between you and me, so please be aware of my fragility in releasing it.  Despite my fears, I give it to you with great love and gratitude.  If it weren’t for you, I could never have written it with such honesty.  Thank you.

Is This All There Is? is available today in paperback and eBook formats through Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

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Check out My Book Boyfriend Blogger’s post about my book!

http://mybookboyfriend.blogspot.com/2013/01/is-this-all-there-is-by-patricia-mann.html