Words, paper, emotion.

I never quite thought I would be that person who would find moving to be a difficult process - and for the most part, it hasn't been. My family adapts to new environments pretty quickly, and while I haven't been exposed to a lot of change in the (very short) 20 years of my life, nothing has really "shaken the very fibres of my being" and what not.

In September 2018, we moved permanently to a place we would soon call "home". I remember being excited and thrilled at the prospect of a new house, a feeling that lasted even as we packed, packed and packed some more. Even until the day before we were set to leave our home of 12 years, and then I set my eyes on my barren bookshelf- that's when it hit me. Hard.

 

Books defined my childhood. Almost every book on this bookshelf (there are two rows on every shelf!) has been repeatedly perused. Some books have really been padicchu kizhicchufied (read until they've fallen apart), and been carefully put together with the handiest resources of a teenager: cellotape (whoops?). This shelf was a work of art- the books that lived in it were from book fairs, book stores, picked up at the airport, won in competitions, gifted by loved ones, hand-me-downs... 

The bookshelf transported me to so many different worlds - I lived among the gods, I lived in a magical world, in an English boarding school, in 19th century Canada. I hated characters, loved them, befriended them, and fought for them. It was really all or nothing. I read a book that inspired me to own a diary for half a year and be disgustingly dramatic. Magic Tree House made me believe I could build my own time machine (it was a cardboard box wrapped in shiny night-blue paper!). Harry Potter took over my entire being and I wrote my own Hogwarts acceptance letter in the corner of my room; no one could find out that I had written my own letter, could they? I loved Anne Shirley so much that I wished to become her, and for a brief period in the 5th grade I wore two plaits and "dreamily" stared out the window during my free school hours.

Somewhere along the way I grew up and encountered newer, grimmer books. I read Jacqueline Wilson, whose books had slightly darker themes, like divorce and mental illness. My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult was one of the first books that made me cry. I was gripped by Jean Sasson's work, which was centered around women in the Middle East. Khaled Hosseini's books tended to pull on the heartstrings a tad forcefully. The genres I had begun to explore exposed me to worlds that were a little more realistic, a little closer to home.

Coming back to this moment, as I type on my laptop in my new, and beloved, home, I have to tell you - the very cathartic and completely unnecessary trip through memory was only to highlight my love for books, stories, words, and the power they carry. It's been a real effort, in recent times, to connect with my younger self, who used to lose herself in the pages for hours on end. But to quote a very famous personality,

Just keep swimming!