BITTER SWEET

I think I’ve told you this before: my favourite word is ‘serendipity’.

I’ve been writing all my life, beginning with letters my cousin and I used to exchange, and then other pen pals I had during my school years.  I’ve written journals too, it just feels good for me to put my thoughts down on paper. 

I suppose some people would call me a nerd and others might think I’m a bit obsessed but words and language and punctuation and syntax; they call to me, fascinate me, intrigue me. 

My dad once told me that they thought I was deaf as a toddler because I didn’t talk (hard to imagine now, I know).  They even had my hearing tested but I was fine.  Eventually they realized that as I played I would practise words quietly to myself – I wasn’t deaf, I was shy and didn’t want to say something the wrong way. 

I still hate being wrong, just ask my husband.  Luckily it hardly ever happens.

I also remember my grandmother (a woman of words herself) looking me in the eye when I was probably 7 or 8 and telling me that she could see I had a book in me because of the way I loved to use language.

I tell you this to show that my love of words is life-long, and as I said, ‘serendipity’ is a favourite.

‘Poignant’ is another.

Back in the innocent happiness of last fall, while I was waiting in an airport for a flight to a wonderful holiday, I went looking for a book to read on the plane.  There happened to be a buy two for $40.00 deal so that’s what I did.  One was a book I had been meaning to read since it had come out and the other looked okay-ish.  At the time I thought it was a love story.

Fast forward to the reality that is the of spring 2024.  I finally finished the first book and decided to pick up the second one.  It’s called Bitter-Sweet. It’s not a love story, after all.

Not only that, it’s not my kind of book at all.  If I had paid more attention in that airport book store I never would have bought it, but here’s the thing … Serendipity must have whispered to me “This one is for you” and I listened.

In this book the author, Susan Cain, explores personality types, citing many studies, interviewing many experts, and backs her theories up with anecdotes – definitely not my choice in reading material.  And yet, by page 5 I knew I would read the whole thing; she was talking to me.  Or rather, she was talking about me.

This is over simplifying the book but Bitter-Sweet tries to describe the personality type that sees/feels/embodies happy and sad simultaneously, or maybe better put, people who experience sad but use that experience to grow it into something good, or even joyful.  Her examples often cite great works of art or music like the work of Leonard Cohen and Beethoven.

Obviously I am not in that league, but I immediately recognised my life-long thoughts and philosophies in how she was describing others.  In her intro she lists several things bitter-sweet people have in common but the one that claimed me with the most power was when she asked if the work ‘poignant’ ‘resonated’ with me.  This is the perfect way to explain how that word affects me.   

I recognise that this is the perfect book for me to be reading at this time in my life.  I also understand that serendipity saw to it that I would have it when I needed it.

The next chapter is “What is sadness good for?”

I hope I can turn it into something good.