LIGHTWEIGHT

Chapter 3: Speculations

I find comfort in books. Getting caught up in stories and letting my imagination give life to all the characters I come across. It's kind of an indescribable feeling. When you read a book, it becomes a part of you. You are immersed in this parallel universe and characters become friends that you follow around along the journey. When I'm really into a story, it becomes my own reality. Sure, you can get the same impression when you watch a movie, but really, it's not the same.

The process of reading puts you in a position of actor and not spectator like it is with movies. You go inside the brain of each character and you get emotionally attached to them. You want to help them. When they laugh, you laugh too. When they cry, you start sobbing. And don't even let me tell you how I feel when one of my favorite characters dies. I literally have to take a week away from everyone because I'm in mourning.

I also have this thing for words. The way you put them together and how it all makes sense. Not because of the words themselves, but because of the meaning you give to them. Words are powerful and you can use them in the most beautiful way possible or you can use them to hurt people. Words stay with you and keep you company when everything else seems to be falling apart. You can choose to hold on to the words that make you smile or you can hold on to the ones that cut right through you like a knife.

I think we somehow always make the wrong decision and focus on the bad. We obsess over it and make ourselves go crazy by repeating the words over and over again in our heads. Words can definitely affect you in both extremes and therefore, they need to be used carefully.

I like to keep this notebook. Granted, a little warned out now but I refuse to use another one. A black cover with a little white penguin drawn thanks to a whiteout. These pages are where I keep all of the words that strike me in one way or another. It can be something someone said to me, or a quote that I read somewhere. It can be good or bad, what matters is that it made me feel something at a certain moment in my life and in order to remember that feeling, I write it down.

Some people like to keep photographs but I collect words and quotes. The purpose is the same, we don't want to forget. We want to be able to go back in time and remember the exact feeling we felt when we captured a certain memory or moment in life.

Pictures are nice, they tell you a story at a certain time and it's up to you to imagine what happened before or after the picture was taken. With words, it's timeless. You don't know exactly what it meant at the time it was written. And you know, you can write something that you don't feel at some point in your life and then read it months later and it will represent exactly your state of mind. It's not fixed in time like a picture. It can evolve and you can even put a different meaning to a quote that meant something completely different to you a year ago. I like that elasticity and freedom that comes with words.

Working a part time job at a library only seems like the most natural thing for me to do. When I graduated from high school, which was not a given considering the fact that I was the worst student ever, I didn't want to go to college. I was done with our educational system that is crap. Besides, I didn't see the point. I needed a break. I had to stop and think about how I would choose to live my life. People think they have it all figured out and that everything will go according to plan when they leave for college. Because you know, college years are the best years of your life. Ain't that what they say? And maybe they're right. Maybe things go just as you want them to and life gives you everything you ever wanted just like you predicted.

But what if something goes wrong? Let's just imagine this for one second okay? What if it's all going fine until one day something happens and it forces you to change your perspective on life. Depends on what happens I guess.

Well, how about a divorce. It's the first example that popped in my mind but that's okay, I can still work with that. So let's imagine that you are about eight years old and it's a beautiful day in April. You come home from school with your friends and you decide that you should all hang at your house. You feel especially happy because your teacher liked the poem you wrote about your favorite memory. And today in the cafeteria, you got the last piece of pie. Can you visualize your level of happiness now? It's pretty high right?