Week 13 Essay: First Reading Experience

Reading has always been a huge part of my life. My mom loves to read and thankfully instilled that love in me when I was young. We did not have much when I was little, but she always made sure there were things for me to read. Back then we lived with my great aunt, Barbara, who also loved to read as well as travel. She would read to me, tell me stories of her travels all over the world, or have me read to her. I loved every minute of it and it didn't take long for Mom and Aunt Bar to notice that I had a huge appetite for learning and reading. I was always asking questions, fiddling with things, exploring, and telling my mom new things I learned. Both Mom and Aunt Bar were very supportive and nurtured my fascination, but Mom was very busy. She was a single mom with 2 kids working 2 jobs, so she did not have as much free time to spend with me reading as she would have liked. Aunt Barbara stepped in and after mom initially taught me how to read, Bar would help me further my reading skills and knowledge in any subject I wanted. So, as my brain and my vocabulary grew, I began requesting different types of reading material. At 5 I received my first medical book. It was a medical terminology book, and I was ecstatic. Soon, I was reading scholarly articles about the origins of headaches, anatomy books, articles about medical technology and advances, encyclopedias, books about animals, books about Egypt, original writings of popular fairy tales, and books about science in general. I enjoyed fiction and fun stories, but gravitated towards non-fiction writings that helped me learn more about myself and the world around me. One of my first memories is of me asking my mom a bunch of questions about symptoms she may have because i was convinced she had some super rare disorder. Turns out I was on the right track because I was looking at an obsessive-compulsive disorder (I don't remember which one exactly) and Mom has generalized anxiety disorder (as do I) which is closely related. Overall, reading became a huge part of my life and was something I both enjoyed and excelled in. It was also a great way to connect with my mom who did not have much of a childhood herself and as such does not really know how to play or engage in activities involving the imagination. It brought us closer together and became a source of pride for her, especially in 2nd grade when I was placed into a 5th grade reading class because I was being disruptive due to boredom in my class. After all, in 2nd grade I was already reading young adult novels.

Girl Reading a Book

Uploaded by bf5man and found on Open Clipart

I love reading.

Side note: My love for reading made me really connect with Belle from Beauty and the Beast, which is why the only princess that I ever dressed up as (until college) was Belle.