I have been reading since I was old enough to pick up a book, and before that my nights were consumed by my parents taking turns reading to me. It started off as a hobby, and a way to just pass the time, but I soon realized that it was much more than that. As a child, reading gave me a way to explore, and travel; I loved that aspect of it. I would sit in my bedroom with a book on my lap and feel like I was no longer there. My love for reading paired with my active imagination allowed me to journey beyond those four walls and into a different fictional world every day.

As I got older this passion for reading only grew. I was the teenager that would tell my friends I was too busy to hang out because I had to finish the book I had just started. My Christmas and birthday gifts were piles of Barnes and Noble gift cards because everyone in my family knew that was exactly what I wanted. My mother used to joke that she could drop me off when Barnes and Noble opened and pick me up when they closed because I could spend hours getting lost behind walls of new books. It wasn’t just something I indulged in when I was at home, because when my family would travel to new cities I would find myself looking for old bookstores to explore. I was eager to find a couple of old books covered in dust because I hoped somewhere in the old wrinkled pages I would stumble upon a secret or two.

My favorite books are the ones that demand a reaction, the ones that have the ability to excite each and every one of my senses and make me crave more. A book didn’t last more than a day in my hands before it was added to the bookshelf of “already finished books” in my room, and it takes a very long time for me to even consider giving away one of my books. The older I get the more I find myself falling in love with the words I’m reading. I no longer use reading as a way to escape because I'm so focused on how the words make me feel. I'm fascinated by how some authors can form sentences so perfectly that they force me to feel things that I normally wouldn't. How they seem to just roll off the tongue, and how they don't always mean exactly what you'd think. It's an art.

I think reading will always be my go-to for enjoyment no matter how old or busy I start to get. It is incredible how much I have learned about myself from reading the words and ideas written by people I don't even know. It's more than just a passion, it's a lifestyle.