Okay, I admit it - I sometimes wish I lived the life of a leading female character in a romance novel. I'm not particularly proud of this pronouncement but it's a fact I have to embrace instead of running away from it. Now, I'm not talking about the really trashy, kitschy romance novels, like the Twilight series, Shades of Grey series or Harlequin Romance novels. No, I mean the novels that are slightly more elevated than that, for example: Nora Roberts, Helen Fielding, Sophie Kinsella, Margaret Mitchell, and yes, Jane Austen and Charlotte Brontë (I do love my classic romance novels). These stories have a particular pattern that I would not mind if reality mirrored them - at least a little bit: boy meets girl, boys loses girl, boys finds girl again, and boy and girl live happily ever after. Yes, it's an archetypal trope, and as an English teacher/literature fanatic, I should have higher aspirations, but alas, the hopeless romantic in me won't be satisfied with anything less. And even though I know that this pattern does not resemble real life ... well, at least not MY life, I can't help but wishing that I could crawl into the pages of a book and take on the role of ... well ... Elizabeth Bennet, Elinor Dashwood, Bridget Jones, Jane Eyre, Scarlett O'Hara, etc. No, instead my life more closely resembles Miss Bates from Jane Austen's Emma. (Miss Bates is a middle-aged spinster without beauty or prospects, who is a sweet, generous, kind, and thoughtful woman who lead a rather unimpressive and unnecessary existence.) Well, at least I'm represented.
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