As you might expect, if 5 year old Kristin met 32 year old Kristin, we would have little in common. Dark hair, yeah, and some self-esteem issues, probably, but on the whole, the person I am now is so different from the Me then we’re hardly recognizable. Except for one thing: now, as then, there’s a really good chance you’ll find my nose in a book.
It’s funny - ask my family what I was like when I was younger, and that’s what they’ll say - “your nose was always in a book!” For whatever reason, I took to reading early, and have spent much of my life in literature. Looking back, my book exploits are both dorky and cute: the way I would “sneak” reading under the covers after I was supposed to go sleep; the piles of books I’d take out of the library while on vacation!; the way my family had to stop me from reading when I did the MS read-a-thon, because people pledged a certain amount per book, and I was going to cost them too much money.
Reading so much at so little definitely pegged me as a nerd, but at the same time gave me such a great education - I went through a Greek mythology phase in elementary school and ended up knowing about gods, battles, and stories I wouldn’t encounter until high school or college. It also gave me random knowledge about a billion different topices - to this day, I can remember bits of biographies I read in my town library, or dumb 50s-era teen books I read at age 10. And no doubt, the preternaturally adult vocabulary I developed over the years came directly from all the fiction and nonfiction I devoured each week.
My love of reading (doesn’t this sound like a high school essay?!) continued through high school and college. High school, because it was easy and I had the time to read, and college, because the whole experience was so inspiring and I got to read such great books for class. Once I got to college reading for pleasure took a back seat to the hundreds of pages a week I had to read for my English and history classes, but one reason I loved the beginning of each semester was because I still had a pocket of time to eke out a novel or two. And one of my absolute favorite parts of school was hunting through the ancient stacks of the main library and finding old, crumbling versions of yesteryear’s bestsellers (that the library somehow let you take out!). I love Edith Wharton regardless, but reading a gilt covered 1917 version of Custom of the Country plucked from the shelves of the campus library, unopened for probably 70 years … yeah, the literary dork part of me was in heaven.
Even now, you can meaure how happy I am at work, how well my job is going, by how much I am reading: when things get really tough, I’m barely able to get through the NYT and US Weekly; when things are okay, and I have a tiny semblance of a normal life, I go through 5 magazines, 7 newspapers, 8 daily updated websites, and 2 books a week. Times like this - like right now - I read on the commuter train, on the PATH, while I’m walking to work, while I’m waiting for my lunch, while I”m in the car, while I’m on the train and PATH going home, and in bed before I go to sleep. 28+ years after I first picked up a book, it still makes my life rich and full.
Kris97
Reading is such a gift.
Here, here!