Once Upon a Time...

Books. If you know me at all, it's no news to you that I love them. I am a reader, and I am very proud of that fact. While many teenagers find their comfort in reality tv shows (alright, I'll admit I've got a few addictions on that account as well), I find it so much more relaxing to pick up a nice three hundred or so paged book and bury myself in another character's life and troubles for a little while.

I've always adored reading. I truly can't think of a time when I wasn't excited to get a book for my birthday or a gift certificate to Borders, but today I was struck by the extent of my love for reading. The high school years can be a busy time. I've got my hands, arms, chest, and shoulders working together to try and hold onto the load of activities I've found myself taking on throughout the years. I'm on the volleyball team. I have a weekly dance class. I'm in the ski program. I do the school play, musical, and community theater shows. I'm a member of show choir, jazz choir, ska band, and jazz band, and I'm also obligated to be on the math team for my school this month in order to fulfill my honors level requirement for my Algebra 2 class. Add all that to my homework load that comes with taking all honors classes and you find yourself a periodically stressed out and overloaded sophomore.

But today, midterms officially ended. There was no dance class, no skiing, no volleyball, choir, band, or any dreaded math team practice. I had just finished my last audition for the school musical, and my mom was waiting for me to come outside and get in the car. While I'd expected to be going straight home, my mom informed be that she desperately wanted Chinese food. Since I'd been craving it and suggesting we go out and order some for the past week, I happily obliged. However, with Chinese food comes twenty minutes of waiting time for your food to be ready. This is where the books come in.

My mother and I spent that twenty minutes in a little book shop a few stores down that I've been in too many times to count since I was born. I remember playing with the castle play set and the slightly used action figures in the kids' section with my little brother. I remember, as I got older, searching through the aisles for the newest continuation in my favorite book series that never seemed to wrap itself up. As I departed from my mom, finding  "my" aisle, where I would find the category of books I was most interested in, I sat down on the floor and proceeded to read the back covers of what I'm certain was over one hundred and fifty books.

Though I left the store with just six of this amount, my complete happiness at sitting there on the carpet floor in that quiet bookstore, able to peruse and skim as many books as I wished, was something I realized I'd truly missed. Over the course of the busy school year, I'd taken to focusing on my obligatory school books, not taking the time to free read because really, there was very little extra time to find. But as I collected the books I wanted and walked over to the cash register, I was so unbelievably excited to get home and read, and that familiar feeling made me feel warm, happy, and yes, a little dorky.

I love books. I absolutely adore books. In fact, the entire time I've been writing this blog entry I've been staring at my new pile of books, right there in eyesight on my floor, trying to think of how I can end this post quickly so that I can go and begin reading one of them. It's just the feeling of trying to figure out what is going to happen next, falling in love with the characters and fighting their battles with them, and allowing yourself to forget, just for a little while, all the obligations and stresses that are a part of life and choosing to open up a little paperback copy of good old openings, conflicts, climaxes, and resolutions instead. I think reading gives me hope for my own happy ending. And then, of course, it provides me with an unneeded but just as anticipated and exciting sequel to remind me that there's always another page being written.

And with that, I've got some new books to start.