My Twilight Obsession

I have to admit I am a Twilight saga nerd!  I mean, I LOVE it!!!!  So incredibly excited for Breaking Dawn Part 1 to open I could faint…okay that is exaggerating a little bit.  But seriously, it is amazing on so many levels.  Yes, for the longest time (almost up until the second movie came out) I made fun of adults who read the books.  These are for teenagers, not intellectual and mature adults.  Well here is the story of how it all unfolded.

I had a good friend of mine, Beth, stay with me and my family a night or two a week while she was making the commute each day between Athens to Atlanta.  It made the week a little easier to have a close place to stay the night and my family loves Beth so it was easy and enjoyable to have her around.  Although I am not sure if I have ever told her this, but I admire her choices in reading material.  I feel as though she is always reading something thought provoking or challenging.  I can’t remember which one she read but she was, at one point, tackling an Ayn Rand book which I don’t think I am smart enough to do…I mean I can physically read it but to understand it- not so sure about that.  So, the woman whose book choices I greatly admire walks in the door which Breaking Dawn in her hand.  What?!?!?  Needless to say, I immediately ask her what the hell she is doing!  She goes on and on about how amazing they are.  I am in disbelief.  Beth, the smart, intelligent, well read woman I know is reading the Twilight saga?!?   She told me to just read the first one and if I didn’t like it I didn’t have to read any of the others.

Beth brings me a copy the night before I have jury duty.  I bring it with me, not knowing what to expect from my first jury duty.  We sit, we wait, we sit some more.  I start reading the first couple of pages.   Not so bad.  Vampires, a little weird.  But not so bad.  We are told we can leave for 3 hours then we must come back.  There is a Starbucks around the corner so I cozy up to a table with a cup of coffee.  I have to admit, I hid the cover.  I was so embarrassed to be seen in public reading such a silly, teenage book.  Little did I know I would one day be blogging about how Twilight is amazing!

I read, read, read up until I have to be back for jury duty.  I can’t put it down!  I go back to jury duty, wait some more, read some more, wait some more, read some more.  We are finally released.  Apparently they settled.  I was so close to done.  I went back to Starbucks and would not leave until I was finished.  And I did it, the whole book before dinner time!  I couldn’t stop.  I felt as though I had fallen in love while reading the story.  Seriously, if a doctor did a brain scan on me, I think you would see my “love center” all lit up!  Now, that is a sign of a good book!  I watched the movie the next day with Beth.  Although I like the actors in the movie, they did not do my imagination justice.  I felt the same way about New Moon and Eclipse.  However, over time the actors have grown on me.  I am sure it helps that I am a couple years removed from reading the books now.  Maybe this movie will be better since I don’t remember all the details as my brain pictured them.

So, all of that to say, I am so pumped about Breaking Dawn on Friday.  CJ and I are traveling to the beach so I am not sure when I will see it.  I have a super early “work” day on Friday but I might have to catch a midnight showing…if I can find tickets!

 I thought with the start of the movie it would be fun to look back on my life at the time I was reading the book.  I met CJ on a trip where we had to paddle for hours in a kayak next to each other.  I talked for a little while (he would say hours) about my new love for this book series.  Great way to impress a guy!  Yep, talk about the young adult fiction you like.  Awesome.  I was reading Eclipse when we met.  Although he won’t admit it, I think my passion and enthusiasm was cute to him!  Our relationship quickly became long distance as I moved away for grad school.  He was in the midst of going through a divorce.  It was complicated and difficult and painful and beautiful and hopeful all at the same time.  I felt the complication between Bella, Edward, and Jacob was something really relatable at the time.  Here are pieces of two emails between CJ and I as I was reading Breaking Dawn (don't worry, no spoilers, everything I say is obvious from the trailers)…

It is funny how many books I read which are all highlighted and annotated.  I am weird about not getting books from the library because I like to reference them down the road with all my notes.  Even silly books.  It is interesting to look back on what I found important at the time I was reading the book.  Twilight has not been one of those series.  The first two I read, there was nothing I would want to highlight.  It is funny though.  As I am reading the third one now all I want to do is mark passages that stick out to me.  Before, during the first two books, I was just enjoying the romance between Edward and Bella, now their romance takes on a whole new meaning...one that I feel like I am living now.  Although I am human and you are not a vampire.  However there are so many restrictions to our relationship, so many boundaries and obstacles to overcome.  Two things stuck out to me today:

“For this one night, could we try to forget everything besides you and me?” he’d pleaded, unleashing the full force of his eyes on me.  “It seems like I can never get enough time like that.  I need to be with you.  Just you.”

“Because right now, physically, there’s nothing I want more than you.  More than food or water or oxygen.  Intellectually I have my priorities on a slightly more sensible order.  But physically...”

I am loving my last Twilight book.  I figured out what the big twist was this morning which I was not expecting at all, even when I knew there was a twist!  I read about 200 pages already today and might try to get another 100 in before I fall asleep although that is doubtful right now considering how heavy my eyelids are starting to feel.  I am including some of my favorite things from today (which of course made me think of you…

How did people do this-swallow all their fears and trust someone else so implicitly with every imperfection and fear they had-with less than the absolute commitment Edward had given me?  If it weren't for Edward out there, if I didn't know in every cell of my body that he loved me as much as I loved him-unconditionally and irrevocably, and to be honest, irrationally-I'd never be able to get up off the floor.  (this is the moment where she is in the bathroom changing into lingerie on her wedding night, she is freaking out because she is about to have sex for the first time...with a vampire!)

It had all been simpler than I had expected; we'd fit together like corresponding pieces, made to match up.  This had given me a secret satisfaction-we were compatible physically, as well as all the other ways.  Fire and ice, somehow existing together without destroying each other.  More proof that I belonged with him.

From http://www.hdwallpapersdesktop.com/Movies/The-Twilight-Saga-Breaking-Dawn-Film/imagepages/image3.htm

Can't wait for Friday!!!!!