Lost and Found

books are my friends

If there's anything I have ever loved when I felt perplexed, it would be books. They've comforted me when the world didn't seem to look me in the eyes. They made me feel all sorts of emotion such as anger, happiness, sadness, loneliness and most of all, they allowed me to breathe. I felt like my books have been my best of friends. When my old friends used to betray me and leave me, I held on to my books. They gave me strength, hope and love. This is why whenever I come across book stores, I have this attachment to books. It's like eating your favorite ice cream for the very first time and when you eat it again for the next times, it just feels like the first time. That's how I love reading books.

Whenever I read phrases or sentences that bring out the best in me, I feel so alive thereafter. It's like living in a world wherein I am accepted by fictional characters and places. It's also when I start to fall in love with characters. There are fictional characters that I am very attached to. It's when the empath within me starts to feel very sentimental when I finish reading books in hours, days or weeks. I used to be a slow reader in the past. Well, I'd say I improved a lot.

Before I fell in love with books, I started first with comics, manga and magazines. That's when I discovered that I have this fascination in reading stuffs. It makes me feel alive. It makes me feel like I don't need to worry about anything because in fiction, I am comforted by different characters from different mythologies, legends and origins.

If you ask me, what is my favorite genre? I'd always say, "Romance." Ever since I was a child, the idea of love and being loved has always been fascinating to me. The idea of a princess saved by her prince and then they'll have their happily ever after in the end makes me hope of something so extraordinary when it comes to reality. But at this age, I realized that my head is entirely filled with fiction that I forget what it means to be loved in reality.

I mean, I always end up getting hurt because of love and I still think it is fascinating because I do believe that everyone deserves a happily ever after. It's just that you're lucky if you have found your soulmate at 16, but I'd say that at age of sixteen, I think I am still learning more of the world and that love doesn't need to be rushed. When it comes to my ideology of love, it's nothing similar to how people perceive of love. To them, it's more on intimacy and butterflies. Yet to me, it's more on understanding, listening, accepting and being able to connect with people.

I think the reason why I was lost before was that I didn't like following what people are up to. I didn't want to be told what to do or say 'cause it annoys me. I didn't want to be like others. I wanted to be myself. I was filled with pride, I guess. But on the other side of the story, I was filled with fear. I fear falling in love. I fear connection. I fear friendship. I fear being close to people. I fear everything that would happen. Nothing made me strong because I was bottled up with all kinds of fears inside my head. Needless to say, books are my friends because I was able to escape from all of my fears through the world of fairytales, fiction and mysteries.