Where I Go When the World Is Too Much

A couple of days ago something not very nice happened to me, I received some bad news. I won’t tell you what news, that’s not relevant at the moment. I will just say that rejection hurts and I will stop here. I am more disappointed than hurt, to be honest, but it will pass, eventually.

This time, instead of feeling sorry for myself and swimming in the sea of self-pity, I went shopping on the world wide web and bought myself some books. And afterwards, I started reading India Holton’s The League of Gentlewomen Witches and I laughed so much and so hard I snorted my tea.

So yes, maybe I live sometimes in an imaginary world populated by enchanted libraries, wizards, flying castles and lady pirates, but it is my way of coping with reality.

I remember one summer when there wasn’t too much to do. I wasn’t that young as to be sent outside to play with friends so I was bored and lonely. And then I discovered a cabinet whose lower part was crammed full with books. I don’t know why or who had put them there. What I remember is that I sat down in front of the cabinet, I took a book and I began reading. And during that summer, I read all the books inside that piece of furniture. And just like that, the long, dull summer became something magical. It was the first time I discovered that a book could open a door and take me somewhere else.

And so it went on.

Because most of the time nobody really paid attention to what I was doing, I continued reading.  I decided I wanted to spend my life surrounded with these enchanted things. The books in our home, the books at the school library and the ones at the city library, too. I devoured them. I was unstoppable.

And I have been living with them, inside them ever since. Filling myself with other people’s words and sentiments until I couldn’t feel my own.

You know what Heaven looks like to me? A huge library. If I close my eyes I can see it so clearly in my mind. Endless shelves. Quiet corners. Big windows with comfortable window seats. Armchairs, chairs, whatever I fancy. Rooms with books for different moods: classical, a dark gothic wing for Dracula and Frankenstein and Anne Rice. Shelves upon shelves of cozy fantasy, another room for beautiful deluxe editions. And of course, an enchanted cat wandering between them. What a dream! To be able to read whenever I wanted, for as long as I wanted. No chores, no hospital visits, no long nights of anxiety, no bad thoughts.

Books helped me my entire life. I have read myself safe and sane so many times.

When life would be too much, I would disappear in a book for a while.

So, a few days ago I got upset because of some news I received.  I sat down and wrote about it. And then I read a book. And then reality was manageable again.