Hold Me Now

Chapter 5: Brothers

"Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance. If the dispositions of the parties are ever so well known to each other, or ever so similar beforehand, it does not advance their felicity in the least."

Charlotte Lucas's words ran through her head, along with the conversation she and Elizabeth had. Stopping to reflect on this, Ava considered courtship then and now. Grabbing her literature notebook, she began to write her reflections down. First women and men, back then, had to guard their reputations. 

While the reputation is important, a person's character is more so. Someone could have a poor reputation but have great inner character. They could be an amazing person, but their reputation makes them unworthy. Snubbed even. Everyone makes mistakes. The societal views of reputation, during that time, were harsh. 

One mistake and you're done. In fact, a person really couldn't make any mistakes. Perfection was the aim. Look perfect, act perfect, be perfect. But perfection is unattainable. No one is perfect. All perfection does is make the fear worse. And fear is the worst thing. Fear of failure, fear of looking unlovely, fear of being less than. 

The thing about this is perfectionism is self-abuse. All it does is make you feel inadequate. This is something she knows well. She lived it during the anorexia days. Feeling inadequate and ugly made her abuse herself. Those same feelings make others do similar but different abusive things like bully, self-sabotage, anger, hurting others, you name it.  

How many people during the time period of Pride and Prejudice felt deficient in some way? How many of those people turned to forms of abuse (public or private)? With those thoughts, if a person made a mistake, where was society's forgiveness? One only needs to look at the book A Scarlet Letter to see the ideas on that. 

Striving for progress is better than perfection. It is more courageous to be imperfect than to strive for what is unattainable. Perfectionism destroys a person more than reputation does on its worst day. However, one should strive for good character and integrity. Those matter more in the long run and big picture of things. 

And speaking of forgiveness, even if society doesn't forgive a person should always forgive themself. A true perfectionist is hardest on their own self. It's OK to mess up. Everyone does it. That's why pencils have erasers, to correct the mistake. You don't have to be perfect to be amazing.

She thought of Johnny when she wrote that. He's not perfect yet he's amazing. She thought of Dutch too. It sounds like something he'd say. Except he would finish it up with something like "No words are amazing enough to describe how fantastic I am." She chuckled at this.

Ava wrote all of this down in her notebook. Mrs. Kirkwood expects them to keep reflections in there. Hopefully, she'll appreciate her notes. As she wrote the question, Is society and people so different from the day back then? a knock sounded at her door. 

"Come in!" she yelled. With quickness, she closed the notebook shut but clicked her pen. A smile grew on her face at the person entering. 

Striding into the beautiful yet playful bedroom is the man of her dreams. He launched himself onto her bed and put a pillow behind his head. "Hey. What're you up to?" Johnny tried to take her notebook, but she wouldn't give it to him. So he pouted.

Letting go of the book for a brief moment, to adjust the pillow behind her back, Johnny seized it. She smacked his hand and retook possession and placed it on the bed beside her. He held his hand out to her, which she took. Turning her head, she asked "I thought you had practice today? Don't you have it on Saturdays?"