What is your favorite hobby or pastime?

Reading was my first love. Before I had my first crush on a boy, before I understood what love even meant, there were books.

I had an insatiable hunger for them. I would read everything, instruction manuals for medications and household equipment, cookery books, magazines, romance novels far too mature for me, and even my school textbooks. If it had words, I read it.

I had a troubled childhood, a father I desperately wanted to escape but couldn’t. Books became my refuge. They were my way out, my hiding place, my wonderland. When I read, I was safe. I didn’t have to remember. I didn’t have to feel afraid. I was simply safe.

But over the years, I lost that love.

It happened slowly, then all at once. I grew up. I was no longer the little girl hiding between pages. I was the adult who had emotions to manage, bills to pay, responsibilities to shoulder, a future to plan and a life to live.

The little girl who used to hide behind books disappeared, and so did her love for reading.

In my journey of finding myself, I found her again. My first love.

I remember the day I fell back in love with reading. I had just finished The Gillyvors by Catherine Cookson, and I felt something stir within me. It was an emotion I’ve come to associate with contentment, though that word doesn’t quite capture it. My heart felt like it was bursting.

I wanted to cry, but I wasn’t sad. I wanted to laugh, but I couldn’t. It was this overwhelming euphoria I couldn’t express, a fullness in my chest that felt like it might explode.

That feeling has stayed with me. Each time I forget why I love reading, I remember that moment and I pick up a book.

Reading is still my escape, but it’s different now. I’m no longer running from something; I’m running toward something. Toward wonder, toward beauty, toward the feeling of being fully, completely alive.

I’m no longer the frightened child seeking refuge. I’m the woman who chose to come home.

Song of the day – “Would That I” by “Hozier”

Wandering Helen