Bonjour Tristesse

For some strange reason I feel I need to explain why I haven't blogged for a while. Simple fact of the matter is I got a bit of stage fright. Its incredible, I'm not even sure anyone reads my blog or my blog posts in their entirety, and I am okay with that. But like an actor who has to go out and perform in a one-woman show to an audience of maybe one or two people (I'm talking from experience having been an audience member on one such occasion), I'm pretty sure there's still a knot in their stomach. That little bit of fear, the holding back moment, when you ask yourself the question 'am I really doing this?' And it probably doesn't matter to them whether that audience is made up of one or one hundred. There's a moment of existential crisis and let's face it those mostly happen in isolation anyway.

So at times like these I reach for the literature - its my only solace when things feel a bit unstable. Here's the opening paragraph from Bonjour Tristesse, probably the book's greatest sentences. How handy that they should come on the first page -

'A strange melancholy pervades me to which I hesitate to give the grave and beautiful name of sadness. In the past the idea of sadness always appealed to me, now I am almost ashamed of its complete egoism. I had known boredom, regret, and at times remorse, but never sadness. Today something envelops me like a silken web, enervating and soft, which isolates me.'
From Bonjour Tristesse by Francoise Sagan