I remember being six years old and walking downtown with my dad…it was Christmas time and all the trees were lit up, all the shops stayed open so late, and there were so many people, people everywhere…and it was so cold. My dad put me on his shoulders and we walked around looking at the lights until I was too cold. So we went into the bookshop that used to be down there…Dickens-Reed. I always loved that place…..when I got older, in the summer time, I would spend whole days just walking down there, looking at all of the books. Then the used book store opened across the street and I split my time but Dickens-Reed was always my favorite. I was so sad when they closed that bookstore….that was my idea of a perfect job. I would run the business by day and write at night. There was a bakery too, I could bake all day, whatever I wanted. When I go home to my parent’s house, I bake all the time…anything, everything. They always have all these extra ingredients and spices…things I could never afford to buy. I feel like that little kid again…I fall asleep at night planning out things that I want to cook, books I want to write, to read. These aren’t earth-shattering things, but these are my favorites. If the world were perfect, these are what I would want all the time…..but it’s not perfect…and maybe these are just parts of a pretty childhood that I have to leave behind now.
It’s a big world out there and….I’m not really afraid of it….just nervous that things will change too much. I’ve wanted to be a writer since I was five years old…that’s all I ever wanted to be. It’s funny how your goals change as you grow up. I used to want to write a novel, something that could show people a good story….something that would make them think about something in a new way but, in the end, just make them happy that they had read it. I wanted them to love to read like I did…to stay up late, wasting hours away, just reading. But now….I just don’t have any hope there. I’m not very good…that’s not me beating down on myself, I’m just not….and it makes me sad to think that I can never give people that….like I owe all of the authors that I love, owe them for all of the hours I’ve spent reading them…and now I’m just letting them down.
It’s almost 6 a.m….I guess I should go to bed.
