I'm lost at sea, don't bother me. I've lost my way...

"'I wish we'd spent more time together,' she said.
'What do you mean? We just spent the whole summer together.'
'No, not the summer, our whole lives. I've been thinking about it, and I wish we'd spent more time together.'
'Ali, we live together, we work at the same place, we've spent our whole lives together.'

In the beginning, they did. They lived their lives together, with each other. But over the years, it had changed. They had allowed it to change. She thought about the sabbaticals apart, the division of labor over the kids, the travel, their singular dedication to work. They'd been living next to each other for a long time.

'I think we left each other alone for too long.'
'I don't feel left alone, Ali. I like our lives, I think it's been a good balance between an independence to pursue our own passions and a life together.'

She thought about his pursuit of his passion, his research, always more extreme than hers. Even when the experiments failed him, when the data wasn't consistent, when the hypotheses turned out to be wrong, his love for his passion never wavered. However flawed, even when it kept him up all night tearing his hair out, he loved it. The time, care, attention, and energy he gave to it had always inspired her to work harder at her own research. And she did.

'You're not left alone, Ali. I'm right here with you.'

He looked at his watch, then downed the rest of his coffee.

'I've got to run to class.'

He picked up his bag, tossed his cup in the trash, and went over to her. He bent down, held her head of curly black hair in his hands, and kissed her gently. She looked up at him and pressed her lips into a thin smile, holding back her tears just long enough for him to leave her office.

She wish she'd been his passion."

-Still Alice by Lisa Genova (pg. 189)

This is exactly how I do not want to feel at the end of my life. I, like Alice, want to be somebody's life-long passion, not just one among many; I also want to be passionate about them in return, above all else. This book was heart-wrenching in every regard. Alice is diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's, and this book follows her life and she lives with her disease, and deteriorates from it. I did not expect this story to hit me as hard as it did, but I found myself utterly attached to Alice and crying right along with her and her family as she struggled to do basic things that she had done at ease for her entire life. Alice's story is tragic and I felt every emotion right along with her when reading this book. Genova has written a beautifully provoking book; its strength lies in its haunting truth. Genova writes a very human tale of suffering, and drags her readers into the story until they too feel the heartache that Alice feels.