Why Fantasy Makes My Life Seem Lacking

I remember my first time reading the Harry Potter series. Only 4 books had come out and I had read them all in 4 days. The problem was, I didn't feel right. I felt alone, sad, depressed. It was like all of a sudden my life was so outrageously devoid of excitement and magic that I couldn't bear to be myself anymore. I wanted to have a life outside of what everyone else in America had, I wanted to have something special happen to me, something surreal. It never came, and eventually I got over it. The next 3 books came out and they were read without a reoccurrence of any sadness or longing desires to be swept away to some far away place.

I had hoped that would be the end of it all. That Harry Potter was such an amazingly well written book that, maybe, there weren't others that could suck you in like that. Unfortunately for me, there are other good story tellers in the world. After seeing the previews for the new Twilight movie I decided it looked like a good movie, so I went and picked up the 1st at blockbuster to rent so that I would be caught up on the story. I watched the movie every day until I had to return it then went and bought my own copy. Deciding that the movie was so good I took a quick trip to B&N to pick up Twilight and New Moon to read. I'll admit, I didn't like the Twilight book as much as the movie. The character of Bella seemed too weak to me and I generally prefer stronger more controlled female characters. Nevertheless, I progressed and read through New Moon in about 8 hours, never putting it down.

All of a sudden I was hooked and its Harry Potter all over again. Only this time, its wrecking my view of what relationships should be. Instead of hoping I'll get shipped off someplace, I'm hoping to be someone's reason to live, if you will. Its frustrating as all hell. I know, I know that the relationship between Bella and Edward is completely unrealistic. The problem is...its every girls fantasy. To be so deeply, passionately and bizarrely drawn to someone and have them return the feeling 10 times over is, well, unimaginably amazing to hope for. So what happens when you see your fantasy played out in front of you? All the faults and troubles with reality come crashing down so hard that you start imagining that "this can't really be it, there has to be something more". Even relationships that are otherwise great seem lacking.

The ability of these books to draw you so far into their world that you start believing that maybe, just maybe, you can have the same experiences. Ultimately that feeling fades and the cloud of fantasy that surrounds your head eventually evaporates. It becomes easier to appreciate and love what you did before you got sucked into some irrational thought process based on fictional characters and stories. Good books are just so hard to get over, especially when a part of you doesn't really want to let go.