Great Expectations

When I was a tortured angst-ridden teenager (a few weeks ago) I had a crush on a boy and it didn’t work out. Then I read Great Expectations and I wanted to be Miss Havisham, dressed in cobwebs and gothic wedding finery. 30 years later here I am, a single mother style icon, dressed in tattered clothes, lying alone in my bed reading Charles Dickens.

“The broken heart. You think you will die, but you just keep living, day after day after terrible day,” said Miss Havisham.

“Heaven knows we need never be ashamed of our tears, for they are rain upon the blinding dust of earth, overlying our hard hearts. I was better after I had cried, than before–more sorry, more aware of my own ingratitude, more gentle.”

Thank you Mr Dickens, we are never alone when we are in the middle of a great book.