Rewriting My Happily Ever After: A Memoir of Divorce and Discovery
How do you describe a feeling?
The English language provides us with words galore to do this Herculean task, but Happy, Sad, Understood, Connected and Accepted are mere words. They do not help us explain the true depths of human emotion.
This book is a feeling.
Rewriting My Happily Ever After is an account of the author Dr Ranjani Roa’s journey through the stifling, bumpy streets of divorce to the much sought-after highways of self-discovery.
The book is structured in five parts and written in the first person. The brief chapters have a very matter-of-fact narration. And, despite the frequent back and forth of the timelines, the narrative flows seamlessly—poignant, heartfelt and so very real. The prose itself is lyrical, profound, and extremely relatable.
It took me two weeks to read the book, only because I read one or two chapters every night before I went to sleep. I feel this book is meant to be read slowly, its words to be absorbed a little spoonful every day to appreciate its absolute genius.
Here, the author’s mind is an open book, literally, wherein we get to glimpse her deep-rooted beliefs, her true self in all its magnificent glory! Reading the book was like talking to a friend, deliberating over their troubles, empathising with them, and somehow trying to find meaning in the pain.
The book delivers its lessons flawlessly, without being preachy or judgemental. For me, the book homes in on the irrefutable fact that a good education and financial independence are a necessity for every single individual, man, woman, and child.
As the author states in the book, “Life doesn’t always oblige by lining up events in the desired sequence.”
Change is the only constant in life and equipping ourselves to deal with it, whether it is through education or skills or physical or mental strength, is the best gift we can give ourselves.
I strongly recommend Rewriting My Happily Ever After. This book is not only for people who are dealing with divorce or separation and are looking for some connection or guidance, but for everyone, because “Adversity can be a great unifier, a stimulus that helps people bind together with a secret glue.”
I will leave you with a few quotes from the book that moved me-
- “Faith is a funny thing. It holds out the option of surrender when everything else has failed. The power of prayer lies in its ability to give us permission to put down our burdens and trust that the universe will have our backs.”
- “A place can be a living, breathing thing. It can shimmer with joy or with maleficence.”
- “Words have power. When we internalize things that people say about us, those words often become our beliefs.”
- “Every single person deals with their own special trauma—there is no hierarchy of pain that makes one’s suffering superior to that of others. We work from our own baselines, moving up in our understanding of how it all fits together.”
- “The worst thing about your life falling apart is that the world takes no notice.”