To Reread or Not Reread

Recently, I decided to reread the classic novels that I had read in school.

Why? 

I came to this decision after hearing a discussion about Edith Wharton's Ethan Frome. I had read it in school and I hated it. Which is surprising because I love Edith Wharton. Nothing pulls at my heart like The Age of Innocence. 

As I listened to these two speakers talking about the book, I wondered what had my teenage self missed and what would my adult self discover now.

But I decided that I wouldn't stop with just that novel. This endeavour is more about reading classics. It has become about me seeing how I have changed, how I see the world has changed.

When I read The Age of Innocence as a teenager, I hated that Archer didn't end up with Ellen. To me happiness was all that mattered and to give that up and be miserable with May--pure foolishness to me.

As an adult, I see that ending differently. Archer had a duty to loved ones and would have hurt many people he cared about and perhaps himself. What would have happened too him and the Countess if he had left May. As May wasn't the stupid, blind, weak person I thought her once.

Life has thought me that lesson. Though, I write romance and always have an Happily Ever After in my novels, that doesn't me that I or other romance authors don't see that life doesn't always work that way.

Sometimes, the happily ever after is not the one expected but doesn't hold any less importance. We just have some time and wisdom to see it.