THE MIDNIGHT LIBRARY OF LIFE

Chenise Sinclaire photographed by Celeste Shiels

Every morning when I sit down at my laptop to write, I never know what’s coming. I just let my fingers glide over the keyboard and write wherever my mind takes me.
What message do I need to share today?
What story can I share of mine that may be of use to help someone else today? 

I don’t plan out my posts. 

I just write.

Maybe that’s silly from a business perspective. But then again, this isn’t a business and I haven’t treated it like that from the beginning. The more views I get on my posts, the more data and numbers there are to see and analyse, I don’t want to fall into the trap of this and begin to tailor my content into an accidental niche. That was the whole point of WATER-SHED.
No niche.
Just raw entries on whatever it is that needed to be written that day. 

I finished reading a book a while ago. It’s called ‘The Midnight Library’ by Matt Haig. I saw Theo Von on TikTok talking about how it was such an incredible book and when he was describing it I was thinking, “Wow, he reads fiction?” and, “I must read that book.” 

So I read it and it was absolutely incredible.

It’s about this woman, Nora, who wants to die and in between life and death she enters what’s called ‘The Midnight Library’. Basically she gets to see and try all of the other possible lives she could have lived by pulling a book off the shelf and all she has to do to enter that life is start reading. Then she gets transported into that life and has to figure out who the hell she is and decide if she wants to live that life.

She lives many, many, many interesting lives. But her constant issue is the people she knows and loves in her ‘root life’, are not the same. Some are dead and others don’t know her etc. 

It has a lot of philosophical wisdom in this book too. Often referring to Henry David Thoreau; a philosopher from the 1800’s. 

I’m going to share three separate quotes from the book that I highlighted myself.

“‘If one advances confidently,’ Thoreau had written in Walden, ‘in the direction of his dreams, and endeavours to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours’”.

“The lonely mind in the busy city yearns for connection because it thinks human-to-human connection is the point of everything. But amid pure nature (or the ‘tonic of wildness’ as Thoreau called it) solitude took on a different character. It became in itself a kind of connection. A connection between herself and the world. And between her and herself.” 

“If you aim to be something you are not, you will always fail. Aim to be you. Aim to look and act and think like you. Aim to be the truest version of you. Embrace that you-ness. Endorse it. Love it. Work hard at it. And don’t give a second thought when people mock or ridicule it. Most gossip is envy in disguise. Keep your head down. Keep your stamina. Keep swimming…”

Brilliant.
Brilliant.
Brilliant. 

I won’t spoil the book for you because it is an incredible read and the message behind it is we really just want to live. There are so many possibilities of how our lives can go. 

I picked up this book because the concept is so interesting. I have always had this thing myself; wishing for the time to live many lives/lifestyles but having the ‘limited time’ for the one I live now. 

One part of me wants to be a surfer with a nice brown tan and bleach blonde hair who works at a local cafe who just wants to catch waves in her free time.
Another wants to have a penthouse studio in New York City and all I do all day long is paint abstract art and make a living doing it, probably wearing something eclectic and weird. 

I’d also love to own a hundred acre farm filled with all kinds of animals and bathe in a shallow freshwater stream in my own private forest like a real life fairy and ride a horse back to the house.

Ahh. 

So many lives I’d love to experience, but like Nora, I don’t think I’d want to sacrifice the people I love or the things I know to have that change, I’d rather just make the best of the one I have been given. 

The contrast between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ in life is my personal map of what I do want and what I don’t want. 

Regardless of the amount of utter and complete bullshit I have gone through, I wouldn’t take a second of it back. I wouldn’t change one thing that I’ve done or experienced because I know it’s leading me to the life I truly desire and the life I won’t ever give up on. 

Recently I’ve been actively paying more attention to my thoughts and my emotions - more than ever before. Afterall, what you think = you feel. What you feel = you attract. So, I’m choosing to think good things, to feel good things and therefore, attract good things. 

The more I care about myself and how I feel, the better the synchronicities that come into my life are.  

In small areas my life is improving daily and I believe (and know) it is because I am choosing to be grateful and appreciative of the life I have as it currently is and I am consciously making the effort to really be present in the now. 

The past has passed, I don’t spend much time there because I can’t change it. All I can gather from it is self reflection to be better moving forward and to know the signs to avoid repeating the same mistakes. 

The future isn’t set in stone either and just like the past, I can’t control it. These days, I don’t waste my time over-thinking any possible worse-case-scenarios like I used to.
Why worry twice? I’d rather deal with whatever I’m meant to deal with at that time. Let me tell you this mindset shift has taken a huge amount of unnecessary weight off my shoulders. 

Don’t get me wrong - I am a heavvvyyyyyyyy daydreamer! Especially before I fall asleep, I like to visualise different scenarios I wish to live out, things I want to materialise in my reality and even people I want to meet. (Maybe I’m revealing too much right now and you think I’m batshit crazy… oh well.) 

I guess where I’m going with this is, we didn’t choose the cards we have been dealt but what we can do is choose how we play with them. I could very easily use the things I’ve gone through to play the victim and perpetuate that vicious and unhealthy mentality - but that isn’t me and quite frankly, I don’t ever want to be that person. 

When you are grateful for your life - no matter the circumstances - things will always improve.

I have a case on my phone that has one of my favourite quotes on the back that reads;

“Reminder: Everything happens for a reason. Don’t question it all the time. Stop over thinking it. Stop trying to control the direction life is pushing you in. Just let yourself go. Don’t be scared of the unknown or the uncomfortable. Take the leap, trust your gut & open your heart to all the possibilities that life wants to send your way. It’s only the beginning baby.” 

Once upon a time I used to think being selfish was a bad thing. Like somehow that word meant you didn’t have empathy or care about anything but yourself. But I’ve come to know that being selfish doesn’t mean those things, it just means you prioritise yourself. You care about how you feel, you care about what makes you happy and unhappy, you care about having boundaries for yourself, you care about making sure you’re okay first before you are able to effectively help others. Isn’t that what these gorgeous flight attendants have been telling us this entire time? “Help yourself before helping others.” 

I think we can all reevaluate how much of ourselves we give to others versus how much we give to ourselves first. You get me? 

Learn yourself and then learn to love yourself. 

All my love,
Chenise Sinclaire.