soopastryheart

The truth is, I fell in love a long time ago. I fell completely and totally in love, without a sense of how far and how strong that love would grow. It was a love introduced by Hans Christian Andersen and Dr. Seuss, nurtured by public libraries and book fairs, and continuously supported by Barnes & Noble and Amazon.com. It is a love that keeps me insatiable and obsessive, fulfilled and collected. It is an all-consuming yet totally unselfish love, one that I never see leaving my heart.

Let me tell you something about my life.

When my parents decided to move to the US over two decades ago, they only brought a handful of things over. Moving can be expensive business, especially if you are crossing continents, and we weren’t particularly rolling in the dough at the time. What did make the cut however, were sets of books in Korean – a 50-set collection of some of history’s most important (Gandhi, Abraham Lincoln, etc), and a set of children’s most popular fables (Sleeping Beauty, Arabian Nights, the Ugly Duckling). Both sets were for children, and despite the fact that I had only spent one year in the Korean educational system, my parents brought the heavy mother-effers over. I read each and every one of them, repeatedly, until the hinges began to appear battered and bruised.

In grade school, we lived half an hour outside of town. We had limited proximity to other children and with my parents being as overprotective as they could be, Ki and I were stuck in the house quiet often. Did we suffer unfathomable boredom and depravity of our childhood? Absolutely not. Twice a month, my dad would drive us to the local library, where we would check out the maximum books allotted out (25). And in between each visit, I would finish all 25 books, awaiting anxiously for the next visit. One summer, I read the most books for my age group in the summer reading club at the library, that I won an autographed copy of “Wayside Story Gets a Little Stranger” by Louis Sachar. The book remained within arms length for nearly an entire month.

But of course, every love goes through trials and tribulations, testing you, challenging your allegiance. In college, I took a series of classes required by my major that really tested my patience. For a short period, I felt abandoned by the very books I thought would strengthen my love (coughromanticpoetrycough). Even with all my dedication in trying to understand, I was often left confused, frustrated, and utterly betrayed. Still, we worked through our differences, and came out of our rough patch with out love renewed and stronger than ever. And after the quarter was over, I thought if we could make it through Blake and Wordsworth, we could make through anything.

You aren’t a nerd if you enjoy reading. In fact, you should be reading. Newspapers, magazines, books, pamphlets, nutrition facts, road signs. Reading, like vitamins, are good for you. Your vocabulary improves. So does memory. And like vitamins, they come in a pretty good variety. So if one leaves a bad taste in your mouth, you can always try the gummy ones. I’ve never understood those who say they hate to read, or can’t name a book they’ve read since high school. I would feel utterly unfulfilled and malnourished.

I will admit that I have strayed on many occasions. There have been droughts where I had not turned a page or marked a corner. There have been times where pretty pictures in a magazine took priority over a new chapter. And even through it all, the light remains on, and I am always welcomed back with open arms, no flowers or apologies required. It accepts me without judgment, no matter how much I’ve changed or strayed.

It’s nice to know that such a love exists.