RCM Book Club: “What Alice Forgot” by Liane Moriarty
Here at RCM, we love books. We also love any opportunity participate in an awesome book club. So we decided to smoosh the two together and create our first ever virtual Rocket City Mom Book Club! More info about our September title is below, and you can request to join the conversation here. Happy reading!
While discussing the next virtual book club title, we thought it would be great to select a modern page-turner. We chose Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty. And I read it! It was awesome! It was so good that I decided to pick up another selection by Moriarty: What Alice Forgot. In the middle of reading it, I contacted Stephenie and told her that I wanted to change the selection to What Alice Forgot. Why? Because it caused me to reflect upon how my life would be different or the same if I developed amnesia and couldn’t remember 10 years of my life.
And I remembered what has slipped into my unconscious mind.
Livelihood and Lifestyle
Ten years ago, I was working as an Office Manager in a residence hall of a local university. I enjoyed working directly with college students and making a difference in their lives. I developed some real meaningful relationship during that time, a good number of them I maintained to some extent to this day. Developing and maintaining meaningful relationships and making a difference is still important to me. Even though I now work in a different capacity, I continue to do just that. I would be proud. I am proud.
Family
I also had no children. I didn’t particularly want children but I didn’t particularly not want children either so I don’t think that I would be surprised that I had a child. I would be surprised that the Buddy Man was only now turning three. I would have expected him to be close to eight-years-old by now at least. I am doing this thing as an older mom? Ugh! I would be shocked by that.
Love and Romance
This is the part of Alice that got to me in a very real and emotional way. Ten years ago this month, my Hubby of almost 12 years and I would have only been at the year and a half mark. Ah, young love. Life hadn’t yet begun!
And while I wouldn’t be surprised that we were still together, I would be surprised at the way life has changed us. You see, at a year and a half, I was so very much in love with my husband. I instinctively knew he was around without actually seeing or hearing him. It was pretty amazing. A young toddler, mortgages, aging parents, multiple jobs, uh life, has changed that. It’s mind boggling how life’s circumstances can slowly and almost unperceptively move you away from a person. I have awakened and wondered, “How did we get here? How do we have nothing to talk about but our kid when our first conversations were so insightful and interesting that we often stayed up beyond midnight?”
What Alice Forgot made me remember how much I love my husband, how much I love the man that he is, how he takes care of us, and most importantly, how he has always loved me unconditionally.
It made me realize how much I want to be as close to him. No, amend that: how close we are because of everything that we have experienced together in this life. To be sure I plan to be more intentional about connecting with him. I’ve already started. Recently, I went on Pinterest and searched “questions to ask your husband”, found a pin, and we spent an evening asking each other some of those questions. While we didn’t make it to midnight (toddler, remember), and yes, we did talk about said toddler to some extent, it was wonderful!
To quote Liane in Alice, “Love after children, after you’ve hurt each other and forgiven each other, bored each other and surprised each other, after you’ve seen the worst and the best…well, that sort of love is ineffable. It deserves its own word.”
And to quote someone from Pinterest: “When life gets blurry, adjust your focus.”
Sometimes, you must stop, remember, reprioritize, and make it happen. I did. I recommend it.
- Ineffable means “incapable of being expressed in words.” I had to look it up too.
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