Week 9: Essay - For the Love of Reading

 

My dream realized (image source:Verbo.se)

I love reading. Sometimes I feel that I may love reading too much because sometimes, I read almost to the point of becoming antisocial. Reading and writing are both things that come naturally to me now, but it wasn't always that was. I was a bright child, according to my mom, but sometimes my brain seemed to function strangely when it came to certain things. My vocabulary was extensive, but my mother worried that I would never be able to tell time, because I struggled with it so much. I was a great speller, but if you asked me to read something, I would tell you that I did not know how. My mother was baffled. I went on "not knowing how to read" until one of my mother's friends explained to me the connection between spelling and reading.

"When you spell a word," she asked, "can you see the word that you are about to write in your head?"

I told her I did.

"Did you know that that's reading?" I had not known, but from that moment on, I was aware that I could read, for I had always been able to, I just needed someone to explain it to me.

Knowing that I could read is not what engendered the love of reading I have today. In fact, I was pointedly uninterested in books at all. My mom bought them for me and I cast them aside, preferring to watch T.V. or play with my toys. Then one day, my mom said she was going to stop buying books for me altogether, saying that maybe I just wasn't going to be a reader like she had been as a little girl. I don't know why, but this was insulting to me for some reason. It was as if she had issued a challenge and I couldn't back down. My mother hit me hard with the reverse psychology, and from that point on, I was a "reader." In a way, I suppose you could say that my love for reading stems from a innate desire to be like my mom.

Reading became a part of my identity then, and has remained as such today. I was that kid who could more often than not be found with my nose in a book. I would read on the bus ride to and from school rather than socializing with my peers. I've noticed that I have maintained this mentality of the years as there are times that I have to force myself to put down a book and go out and socialize. If given the choice of going to a party on a Friday night and staying home with a great book, I would choose the latter. Ironically, my mother, who lamented the fact that I didn't read the books she bought me as a young child, began to hate buying me books because I read through them so quickly (I've never been much of a library person - I like to own my own books), and thus bought me a kindle so at least I could get books for cheaper. I got funny looks in elementary school because I would use words like "vex" and "queer" which I had read in books and were not part of the typical eight-year-old's vocabulary. I do the same thing now, trying out interesting words I've found in books, and often mispronouncing them because I've only ever seen them written. Clearly, reading early on as made an impact on who I am today.

I've never quite understand people who say that they don't read, and I've come to realize that its because reading is such a major part of who I am. It pains me how little I get to read these days, but the fact that I don't get to read for pleasure very often makes what little bit of reading I do get to enjoy that much more of a treat.