My Year of Magical Thinking
In 10th grade, I read and annotated Joan Didion’s memoir, “The Year of Magical Thinking”. I chose it because a memoir was required, and the title sounded pretty. Magic, dreaming, invention: how fun!
I didn’t like it. After quickly realizing it was a book about mourning, I unattached and told my AP English Language teacher that Joan sounded too “unrealistic.” That’s not grief, I thought. That’s insanity.
Two weeks ago, someone saw the book in my living room and, without being asked, stated his opinion: “I liked that book, but I think Joan sounded too unrealistic.” I viscerally snapped at this individual and have since made it my mission never to let him back into my apartment. It’s funny how grief changes your mind about things. What once felt insane now makes perfect sense.
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Joan Didion, a celebrated journalist and novelist, built a career on sharp, unsentimental observations. And yet, when her husband died and her daughter fell sick, she convinced herself that if she followed the right rituals, he’d come back. People act weird when they’re sad, you might think. But this wasn’t just sadness—it was the kind of loss that rewires your brain. Quite literally, the amygdala, hippocampus and thalamus flare and alter memory, sleep patterns, attention and nearly every essential cognitive function. Still, it’s hard to understand. I’ve known loss—cats, great-grandparents and beta fish. Manageable ones. But how will it feel when it’s unbearable? And what do you do after?
Joan Didion chose to pretend it didn’t happen. “Magical thinking” is what she called it. The fun, inventive, dreamy magic in her head created an alternate storyline for him—her husband was simply away. She kept everything in place, believing he would need his things when he returned. She avoided company, convinced he could only return if she were alone. Her confusion should not be mistaken for insanity; Joan’s striking self-awareness is what cuts me in her art.
“We do not expect to be literally crazy, cool customers who believe their husband is
about to return and need his shoes.”
I used to think of grief as something straightforward: you cry, you accept, you move on. But now, I wonder if it’s ever that clean, if it’s normal to expect someone to return, even when you know they won’t.
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Magical thinking took Joan for an entire year. She held out for him for twelve months, stuck deeply in denial. Today marks two months. Two months of my dad on a cruise (it’s a world tour) that has no service. Two months of my dad at an unplugged celebrity rehabilitation center with a Kardashian. Two months of my dad in a national park in Montana, living amongst the glaciers and elk. He’ll bring me back a postcard. He’s probably even collecting t-shirts for me right now. I hope he gets them in large; I like them oversized.
Image Courtesy of Francesca Jaques
It’s easy to call this kind of thinking unrealistic. It’s even easier to believe that you’d never do it yourself—until you’re six feet deep in an alternate universe you invented so you can think of boys and bars instead. I don’t know when I’ll stop waiting for my dad to come back, or when I’ll stop imagining the postcards, the t-shirts and the way he’d light up at meeting my kids one day. Maybe the real illusion is thinking grief is as cut and dry as crying, accepting and moving on.
If you find yourself like me or Joan, don’t mistake your imagination for delusion—or for failure. Sometimes, grief needs a slight unreality to soften the truth. But eventually, we make our way back–not because we want to, but because we have to. And when that time comes, I will think back on how wonderful my imagination was. How beautiful it is to think as magically as I did, to create, to remember and to dream.
Strike Out,
Writer: Francesca Jaques
Editor: Olivia Evans
Francesca Jaques is an editorial writer for Strike Magazine GNV. You can find her confiding in random strangers in line for the bar about her addiction to A24, her latest class crush who’s surely “the one” and how girls with bangs are just cooler. If you ever want to spiral, head to the third floor of Library West and catch her with tears in her eyes flipping through pictures of Dominic Fike. Or you can just message her on Instagram. IG: francescajaques13, email: tutijaques@gmail.com
