Written Paradise

I love to read. It's as simple as that. I would rather burry my nose in a novel for the day than go out into cold reality and be amongst society. If given the choice of going to a party with all the cool kids or staying at home, on my personal reading couch, with a great book in my hands and hot green tea on the table beside me, I would probably choose the latter.

Something about being able to escape the real world and live within pages, right next to my favourite characters, comforts me. It's soothing for me to be able to start reading and, in a sense, enter another space or reality and ignore whatever is actually going on around me. My mother, I'm afraid, doesn't seem to find the same pleasure in it as I do because she, for one, hates being ignored (even though I honestly can't help it… most of the time…) and having to repeat the same statement more than once; but I assume most mothers are like that. When I read, it feels like I, even if it's only for a moment, seize to exist. Instead, I take my stand inside the book, following the characters on their countless adventures. In my mind, I could reach out and feel this written world as if it were the one I were born into. Honestly, I think I prefer it that way.

Almost every time I finish a book or series, I either feel a grand sense of elation and pride, or I fall into a quiet, thinking state where I go through each event in the book, wishing my life could be somewhat as amazing as what I've just finished reading. It almost gets depressing at times. I start to feel lonely because I don't have a story-book romance, grand adventures, countless exciting mysteries, or what ever traits or powers one of the characters may have had in his/her little fantasy world. Once the cover closes, I get whisked back to reality. Boring old reality. Boring old me. Nothing special, barely tolerable.

Maybe the only way to escape these feelings are to fight back at them with a written world of my own. This time, though, I will take the place of the main character, although probably under a different name. The pen will be my paintbrush, the paper an easel. I will finally have power over my own life, even if it doesn't really exist. I can be free to dream and transfer my musings onto the paper. Words. That's all I need. Words and maybe a little bit of time.

Maybe real life would be better if it weren't real life at all.