I don’t love you

Brod’s life was a slow rea­liza­ti­on that the world was not for her, and that for wha­te­ver reason, she would never be hap­py and honest at the same time. She felt as if she were brim­ming, always pro­du­cing and hoar­ding more love insi­de her. But the­re was no release. Table, ivo­ry ele­phant charm, rain­bow, oni­on, hair­do, mol­lusk, Shab­bos, vio­lence, cutic­le, melo­dra­ma, ditch, honey, doi­ly… None of it moved her. She addres­sed her world honest­ly, sear­ching for some­thing deser­ving of the volu­mes of love she knew she had within her, but to each she would have to say, I don’t love you. Bark-brown fence post: I don’t love you. Poem too long: I don’t love you. Lunch in a bowl: I don’t love you. Phy­sics, the idea of you, the laws of you: I don’t love you. Not­hing felt like any­thing more than what it actual­ly was. Ever­y­thing was just a thing, mired com­ple­te­ly in its thingness.
If we were to open a ran­dom page in her jour­nal – which she must have kept and kept with her at all times, not fea­ring that it would be lost, dis­co­ver­ed and read, but that she would one day stumb­le upon that thing which was final­ly worth wri­ting about and remem­be­ring, only to find that she had no place to wri­te it – we would find some ren­de­ring of the fol­lo­wing sen­ti­ment: I am not in love.
So she had to satis­fy hers­elf with the idea of love – loving the loving of things who­se exis­tence she did­n’t care at all about. Love its­elf beca­me the object of her love. She loved hers­elf in love, she loved loving love, as love loves loving, and was able, in that way, to recon­ci­le hers­elf with a world that fell so short of what she would have hoped for. It was not the world that was the gre­at and saving lie, but wil­ling­ness to make it beau­tiful and fair, to live a once-remo­ved life, in a world once-remo­ved from the one in which ever­yo­ne else see­med to exist.
(Jona­than Safran Foer – Ever­y­thing is Illuminated)