Returning to Avonlea has been a surprisingly fraught experience. Of course it has been in many ways delightful. Anne is very much a Manic Pixie Dream Girl in the very best sense possible (particularly in that she is also a fully developed character) and stepping into her world is like living the experience of the sad sappy guy in the typical MPDG movie. You see the world anew through Anne's big, beautiful eyes and you remember how lovely it is. You feel optimistic not only about the world, but about your potential within it.
And yet, that very optimism became a bit of a double edged sword for me. This is the first time I have visited Anne, I believe, since before I graduated high school. The last time I read these words I was not yet 20 myself:
[Miss Stacy] said we couldn't be too careful what habits we formed and what ideals we acquired in our teens, because by the time we were twenty our characters would be developed and the foundation laid for our whole future life. And she said if the foundation was shaky we could never build anything really worth while on it.I'm 28 now, and I confess that, though I hadn't put those words to it, essentially I worry if my foundation is shaky. I struggle a lot these days with a feeling of pragmatic worthlessness. Which is to say, sure I have the intrinsic value that all humans on this earth share, but beyond that my life adds very little to the world. And I mean that very literally. I produce nothing. I give nothing. I accomplish nothing from one day to the next.
Reading this beautiful story about a beautiful girl who walks through the world actively trying to enrich it in every way she can has made me sad. Because at 16 Anne Shirley is more of a woman than I am at nearly twice that age. I grew up reading these books about these great women and I wanted to be one of them too. But I am so far from being an Anne or a Jo or an Elnora. It is difficult for me to believe I'm even on the path to become like them. Honestly I'm not sure I can be, at this point. So while I have loved visiting Anne and Marilla and reacquainting myself with their wholesome, beautiful outlook on life I find myself feeling...hypocritical and disappointed.
One of my coping strategies in life is to remind myself that I have plenty of time left and if I am not perfect today, I still have tomorrow and many days thereafter to work on it. And that is true. But 17 year old Anne is reminding me that time is also precious and once it is past I cannot get it back. And I am regretting that I have spent 28 years accomplishing so little.
