How I fell into the trap of becoming a life-long reader

I was born in September - the month of sunset-colored leaves and mosquito bite-laden legs. The month that Green Day does not want to wake up from, and the month whose brisker winds assure us that Summer is truly over. All this being said, September is also the month that is one month too late for normal registration in this county’s school system.

When I was four years old, my mid-September birthday told administrators that I was two weeks too young to attend first grade with the other kids, who were almost, but not quite, my age. I was given a test on Vocab and Math skills to determine if I could simply skip Kindergarten and join the ranks of those who were within a year and two weeks older than me. Because my mom had taught me to read before I was four years old, and because my dad and I would practice adding and subtracting in the car at leisure, I passed both portions with flying colors.

Fast forward one school year, and I had completed the once-alien world of 1^st grade. I had learned to make friends with those in my grade, yet I could not shake this strange, perpetual fear of kids who were more than the standard one year and two weeks older than me. That summer, all changed when I met a girl named Ryan who I would one day call my best friend.  She lived across the street from me, and she had just graduated from 3rd grade. She was three years older than me, at least six inches taller (although it seemed like six feet at the time), and rode her bike around the neighborhood with elderly confidence. Although Ryan had never spoken a word to me, her age, height, and maturity left me absolutely terrified. It was actually my grandmother who forced me to talk to Ryan one day, when she noticed that I would run inside the house every time I saw the “girl on the bike.” At first, I had no idea what to say to someone so much older or wiser than myself. The pauses in our surface-level conversation were boundless, and I am sure that neither of us really wanted to talk to the other. It wasn’t until she mentioned her favorite book, Island of the Blue Dolphins, that our dialogue shifted from strained to slightly intrigued. I told her that I hadn’t read, or even heard of, the book, but that I loved to read. She (slightly snobbishly) informed me that the book is a Classic, and that it would be a disgrace if she did not let me borrow her copy.

From then on, our relationship grew. What began as a newly-graduated first grader borrowing books from her book-a-holic of a neighbor transformed into a friendship that is still going strong. If it were not for my mom who had planted the reading seed, or for Ryan who helped cultivate it by serving as a role model for my impressionable self, I doubt that my appreciation of books would have been so long-lasting. Because of these two women’s continued influence in my life, I have fostered a love of reading and the pursuit of knowledge. They are the reason why I have been able to find myself in words, and they are why I associate happiness with well-articulated emotions on a page.