The Bowie Branch Library – where my mom would take us to check out books when we were little.
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My mother recalls my disconnect as a young kid with books.
“You were too busy doing other things–you were a doer.” This statement comes despite my mother’s genuine love for books and reading and the library. If ever there is a role model for someone who likes to read, it’s my mother. She’s been a voracious reader since she was a kid. There’s always a book open at her house; she conquers, on average, a book a week or two, I would guess.
I remember my mother taking my brother and me to the Bowie Public Library as a kid, where I’d check out books and bring them home. Don’t get me wrong—I did read. I remember reading lots of books as a kid and enjoying them.
But it was not love yet.
I remember that I was active and hard to pin down. I was busy playing, being involved, taking some sort of lesson or another, practicing the piano, cheering on teams in high school, and finding any excuse not to sit down with a good book and take a load off.
I fell in love with reading the same year I fell in love with my first boyfriend. I was 16 going on 17. And maybe that’s what made me fall head over heels in love with reading—I could finally relate to love and a love story on a more intellectual level; I could connect with first loves and breaking hearts. I understood unrequited love. And then I understood a much deeper, meaningful, selfless love.
I started out reading Lucky by Jackie Collins (she was the rage back then), and I couldn’t put her stuff down. I wanted to read more, and I did. I was bitten. But perhaps the most poignant book I read that thoroughly transformed me happened in 1987, when I realized what the combination of masterful storytelling and strong writing was. It came in the form of The Shell Seekers by Rosamunde Pilcher.
That book sealed the deal for me. I’d already fallen in love with reading, but that was the turning point. There was no going back after that. It was also the moment when I thought to myself, someday I want to tell a good story. Someday I will write one.
I’ve done that now, three times.
And while my first boyfriend and I didn’t make it past my first year of college, my affinity for reading did. However, my relationship with him made everything I read much more meaningful and deeper.
It’s funny how that happens, how things become relatable though the magic of books, and how relationships force you to see the world from new perspectives. I’ll always be grateful for that.
Can you recall the moment you fell in love with reading?
Stephanie
