walking with my mind

when every other girl was longing for dolls, I longed for books. Everytime I got money from a grownup, usually around my birthday or the holidays, I knew just what to do with it. Invest in paperbacks and hardbacks. Even after my mother took me to the bank to open a savings account. My bookcase filled up faster than that account ever did. The items on the shelves have rotated and changed over the years, but the bookcase is still with me. Though now I'm the tall one verses the days when I had to peer up to the top shelf.

Besides loving to read, books were my escape route. I could vanish into far off places and imagine myself anywhere than where I resided at the time. Walking was out of the question as I lived in car country. Instead of walking with my feet, I walked with my mind as far as I could go. Books opened up a whole new world for me, encouraging a desire to see a different view than what existed outside the living room window. Everyone laughed at me.  Bluntly told me that I would never make it outside of said car country and that I shouldn't expect anyone to help me if I were to venture past the limits of their horizon.

Then I put on walking shoes, dragged a suitcase full of clothes and books to this city that I made my home. I also didn't ask for help. In that first year I had to create makeshift shelves as I was living in a space that was not my own. After finding my own little private corner in my new hometown,  I put my walking shoes back on and ventured back to car country to grab the two things that mattered the most to me: my bookcase and my books. And in the start of my new life, with a window that provided a different view, one thing from my past remained unchanged: those shelves filled up faster with new additions than any other room in my apartment.