When I was in my twenties and living in Paris I had an affair with a famous Czech writer.

Ok it might have been a literary affair and one in my head but the bit about my twenties and the bit about Paris are 100% true.

I read one of his books and went cuckoo for it. And him.

I can’t tell you why I loved it/him but it might have had to do with the fact that I would read it lying on the big grass (just to the left of the sign that read “interdit de traverser la pelouse”  or “don’t sit on the grass, you lousy North American with absolutely no authority complex”) under the Eiffel Tower, exasperating the gendarme (police) who always were chasing me but not in the way I like to be chased, while smoking my hand rolled cigarettes and drinking a short strong espresso,  while intermittently glancing above the text at the beautiful but nasty french men who walked by.

It might have had to do with the fact that I was there all by myself working 3 jobs, going to school, doing what I pleased, as no one’s best friend, daughter or sister,  knowing for the first time that if I fell off the edge of the earth no one would know for days. If that sounds dark it was actually the lightest feeling in the world.

But although the backdrop was amazing,  the book must have been great too. I told my colourful assortment of friends that if they wanted to hang with me they had to read and like  love  adore the book. It was like my quick acid friendship test.   Soon it was made into a film and I went further cuckoo. None of my friends were allowed to see it without me, no one could discuss it without me. I was territorial. He was my lover! Umm, yes we had never actually met.

The only reason I have thought to tell you this is that at this week’s dinner with various teenagers we were talking about precisely that thing-the way you feel when something speaks to you so much that it must be yours and only yours. And those teenagers with their original love of a book, a character, an artist, a song, a band, the ukulele before everyone took it up, and their disappointment when the masses start bastardizing and reinterpreting it, reminded me of that unwieldy passion and that yearning to find something that is yours. And then to protect it with all you have got.

I actually haven’t changed all that much.

A thousand years later or about 5 years ago I went on a blind date and asked if we could meet at a book store  first because I needed to pick up a book. Suddenly out of the corner of my eye, I see the book, my book and it was like running into a long lost lover. It had clearly been re released  but how is it I had not thought of it or seen it in all these years and without thinking I said “oh my that was my very favourite lover  book in my twenties” and my date said ” Are you kidding me- eyes bulging- I LOVE that book”. And I looked at him and thought this must mean something. Wow. I might have to love you.

Over the next hour  I looked at him more carefully and thought- this actually really, really, truly means nothing. I can’t possibly love you regardless of the book.

I guess I have changed after all.

I am always amazed at how we are able to talk ourselves in and out of things. Our ability to separate fact from fiction is critical to the way we see the world and manage ourselves. Take a look at some excellent advice I got this week