My secret love of reading

Growing up I always said I wasn’t a reader. I hung out with the farm kids, we didn’t read. I took so classes but barely passed them. I glided through school, under the surface, terrified to let anyone know that I actually really liked to learn. My deepest darkest secret, I loved to read. 

Sometimes I felt like a secret spy agent in some hostile country, the intel I would gather being the lady hope to save the world. 

Our schools library was the middle of the top floor. A large rectangle, classrooms on the outside, bathrooms and library in the middle. I would wait for the lunch period to start and sneak into the library to borrow the new mystery thriller I had my eyes on a few weeks before. 

I would stow the book away in my backpack and lie to anyone who would never ask, “it’s for a dumb book report for English class” I would repeat the sentence over and over, just in case. 

I would get home and run towards the barn. Once my chores were finished I would prop up in some secluded comfy spot and read. Sometimes I was in the hay loft, others in my favorite tree where the cows were napping below. 

Being in public school I read The Grapes of Wrath, How to Kill a Mockingbird, and Pride and Prejudice, but I never actually read them. I would Google the cliff notes, botch a short essay over it, get a solid D on my paper, and show it off to my friends. “D’s get degrees” I would say jokingly. 

My secret double life of loving mystery thrillers, some sci fi, and every Nicholas Spark book, felt empowering. I had control over what I put into my brain and when I did it. I read the book club questions at the end, summarizing and speculating why that one person died or how their mom, not mom, bird mom, really felt about her children. 

As opposed to the books written on my English Lit’s syllabus, I was making a statement. You can’t tell me what to do. I wore it like a badge of honor. 

Turns out, my love for reading was never about control, sticking it to the man, or some rebellious teenage thing. It’s a lot more black and white than that. I read what I was interested in and I didn’t read what I wasn’t interested in.

You can’t force someone to learn. But if you follow their lead, they will show you everything they already know. 

LOVE, LIVV