Dear Reader

Chapter 16

Dear Reader,

So tonight I was just on Instagram looking at some pictures on the explore page and I happened to come across a Percy Jackson photo. So being the curious person I am I clicked on it. So naturally I thought the picture was funny and followed that person and checked out their page. So as I continued to scroll down this person's page and just read everything and I thought to myself I really miss this fandom. I don't just miss the fandom, although the fandom is full of wonderful people and wonderful things like blue food, and percabeth, I missed the almost childish feeling that came with it. So the story behind this is that in sixth grade my class was forced to read Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief. I had heard of this book before but I wasn't that interested in fact I thought it was stupid. So we started reading it and soon enough I fell in love. That was the first time I really felt a love for a book like yeah I had liked books before but before that I didn't really like reading. That book was also the thing that made me want to become a writer. So after reading that book I just had to keep reading the series and that series changed my life. It was a roller coaster of emotions and for the first time I had been taken away for even just a matter of minutes. Those books were filled with action, romance, blue food, and mythology what else could you ask for? It was all so amazing I never wanted to leave camp half-blood. Then I started to read other series too and while I loved those the Percy Jackson series was still my favorite. I know this all kind of seems pointless, but I was just looking at that and missing everything about that period of time in my life. It was so simple and so much fun. I got excited about so much and was so excited about life. Then my first actual heartbreak happened. I had gotten attached to a guy a year older than me and that didn't go as planned. Yeah I had said some stuff, but the reality of it was that we were just too different too work. I actually talked to him about a month ago and oh how the tables have turned he had texted me saying he missed me and that he's changed. I was finally the one over him. I had finally gotten over him and not given him another chance. I had been the one with the control and boy did it feel good. I had been pinning after this guy for years and loved him for a long time, but finally I stopped and he bothered to come back. It really did feel good. So after he had broken my heart I had tried another guy who I really didn't like that much, I more so liked the idea of him liking me, so that didn't last long. Then later that year another guy liked me and I actually liked him back, then he left me for another girl which wasn't fun. So during all this one constant thing I had in my life was these books. I had these characters that could whisk me off into another universe and make me forget all my problems in the blink of an eye. I think that's why I fell in love with reading. I had so many problems and I could just escape them. It's kind of like what music does for me now. I just remember my parents telling me when I was little to put down the book and go to bed but I would never listen. I'd always stay up that extra hour, or read just one more chapter to see what happens. To be quite honest I miss that. I miss that period of my life. It feels so far away when in reality it was three years ago. That just three years ago I was this nerd who loved reading and loved country music. While I still do enjoy country music from time to time I don't really read as much. I do read required books for school but that's about all I have time for now. I miss not being so busy with five hours of homework a night and then having softball six days a week. I never actually did finish the Percy Jackson series. Well I did finish it I just didn't finish the follow up series. I never did finish the very last book in that series. Maybe that will be my goal this summer. The only thing I'm worried about is that once it's over it won't be the same. That the second I finish that last book my entire perspective will change. Who knows maybe I'll get more into reading again. It seems like now I can't really finish a book. Like they don't interest me as much. I miss being the person people would always ask "you're reading a book that big?" or they would say "what are you reading now?" I miss being a nerd. I've gravitated more towards music now and while I love it I miss being the nerd that reads. I miss how innocent books used to be. I miss how innocent I used to be. Yes I'm so happy for the change that's happened in the last three years, but sometimes I wish I could just go back, even just for a day to live in that innocence again. I want to go back to when my biggest problem was if a boy liked me back not trying to stay alive everyday. I want to go back to when my biggest problem was finding the right boy to go to a dance with, not trying to figure out a way to come out to my parents as pansexual, which they probably have no idea what that is anyways. I just want to rewind three years and stay there for a bit. So really the moral of the story is that growing up, if you can even call three years growing up, sucks and that all those fantasies of being a teenager are fake. That the only party I went to was my best friend's birthday party. That I swore to never do drugs yet all the people I like do them, It's a weird place I'm in right now and to be honest I have no idea how I got here or how I'm getting out but can I just rewind three years?

Sincerely,

your writer.