I completed a story book lately - "The Book of Lost Things" by John Connolly...It's a fantasy story, but quite an interesting read. Fantasy stories are not something I would pick up generally; it all depends. I got to know of this book through Borders e-newsletter, and I read its synopsis, which didn't sound too bad. At some stages, it did keep me gripped, so quite something I enjoyed. So if you are keen, go for it.
Well I'm not plugging the book, just something that occurred to me after I completed the book. A similarity I shared with the boy in the story. Well, he was an only child and his mom's life was slowly ebbing away due to cancer. He came to this conclusion that something can be done about it, and it was all up to him. It started out innocently enough; he just did his playing and games quietly so as not to disturb his mom's rest, and basically he felt that if he did some things a certain way, if he did certain things in a particular / routine way, he can keep his mom's illness at bay. So it came right down to the point where he would wake up in the morning and get out of bed on the right side; he would take a certain number of steps (even, not odd - odd numbers were deemed evil) to go to the bathroom; he would brush his teeth a certain number of times (even still); chew his food a certain number of times (even again)...stuff like that. And if he had bumped his head accidentally on the left side, he would bump it on the right just to make it even..and if he thought he had bumped twice instead of the designated once, he would bump it once again, or any number of times necessary to make it even-numbered and so on; the things he would do...
When I was reading the book, it occurred to me that he seem to have some compulsive disorder. Then I realised that I was a little like that too..and still am sometimes. I thought even numbers were good and odd was bad; and instead of an "obsession" with numbers, I was stuck on routine habits - like doing certain things in a certain way so that I would have a smoothsailing day that day. But I stopped that bad habit after I came to Christ. He, after all, is whom I believe to be in control of my life, not some silly chance thing. In any case, I thought, if doing certain things routinely will get me through a day well, then it's probably the devil at work, that I had to panter to his likes. Haha..well, I caught myself doing that still actually. Not that I believe otherwise now, but I supposed I just sort of fell into habit again. Oh well. Just thought how differently it had looked when it's someone else's story, and how "I'm not like that" or "I certainly don't have any disorders!"...but really, isn't the similarity a tad too uncanny? haha...WELL, I know I DON'T have any disorder =)
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