Reading is How I Connect to Reality, not Escape From It

When asked, "Why do you like to write?" most writers will say it's because they've always loved to read, but I didn't always love to read. At least, not the way I do now. In elementary school my mom took me to the library once a week, but I refused to read the books myself, because, "Why would I read them when you [my mom] will just read them to me?"

By age eight, my parents were convinced that my stubbornness was borne of lack of ability, so they enrolled me in Langsford Learning Acceleration Center, where a one-on-one tutor was assigned to teach me how to read.

"I'm not stupid," I told the woman on my first day. "I know how to read."

"I know you do," she smiled. She tapped her fingernail on the Junie B. Jones novel between us. The sharp sound made me want to slap her face. "Why don't you just read this to me?"

I opened the book and started to read, but as I now know, Junie B. Jones is narrated by an elementary schooler, so the author (Barbara Park) purposely riddled the books with grammar and spelling mistakes. Unprepared for this, I read at a halting pace.

"This doesn't make sense," I said, splaying my hands at the novel after stumbling through yet another infuriatingly incorrect page.

"Okay," the woman said. She stood up. "Why don't you keep reading? I'll be back in a minute." She left the room, and I stared at the novel, throat tight with both tears and amazement.

She doesn't think I can do it, I thought. She's telling my parents I can't read.

Whether or not this was the case, my pride was at stake, so the next week I sat my parents on my bed and read aloud the entirety of an American Girl novel, refusing to let them leave until I had closed the last page.

My parents clapped. They congratulated me. But they still forced me to attend Langsford Learning for the next few weeks. Either because they had already paid for the tutoring or because I really did need help reading, I don't know. I've never asked, because frankly I'm afraid of upending the confidence of my childhood memories.

Whatever the case, after Langsford Learning I read like I was making up for lost time. I collected every Goosebumps book, all the Phantom Stallion novels, an original 1983 copy of The Curse of the Blue Figurine. I read Anne of Green Gables and Little Women and The Secret Garden. I purchased countless faerie-related novels at thrift stores and book fairs. In middle school I discovered the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series, and I've never not been reading since.

Reading made me feel powerful. The vocabulary I gleaned set me apart. Take that, my verbosity laughed at my Langsford Learning tutor, I can read, and I will.

In high school, however, when I met fellow readers for the first time, one of our teachers asked why we loved to read and all but myself replied, "Reading helps me escape reality! I love connecting to the characters and getting lost in their lives!"

While I now understand that escapism is the number one reason lots of people read, back then I only understood that I had never connected to a character; I had never even considered the possibility. Since Langsford Learning, I had read to prove I was intelligent. I read out of spite, not to imagine myself in a character's life.

Ruminating on my peers' unanimous reply in bed that night (and many subsequent nights), I realized that in all likelihood I didn't connect to characters because I didn't connect to people in real life. I didn't understand most people, and I didn't care about most of them. Being homeschooled up until high school, there was a lot about socialization that I just didn't get.

For one thing, people make facial expressions when other people talk. If you don't make facial expressions when other people talk, people call you a bitch behind your back (and sometimes to your face). For another, most people don't follow the rules. Teenagers drink alcohol; they cheat on exams; they drive way over the speed limit, and if you do follow the rules, you're called a goody-goody, or a teacher's pet, or--once again--a bitch. Throughout high school, I learned that the best way to make friends is by complaining, even if you have nothing worth complaining about. People connect to each other by sharing their flaws; by presenting yourself as perfect, you'll only alienate yourself.

I learned this in high school, but I didn't apply it at first, because I didn't like it. Here I had spent my life reading in order to prove I was good enough for the praise of adults, and now that I was on the verge of becoming an adult myself, I was told that the only way to earn praise was by admitting I wasn't good enough after all.

Recognizing this, I once again turned to books, but while before I had read to impress people, now I read to understand them.

By reading Robin Hobb, I unearthed the intricacy of the human psyche. The actions of Hobb's characters often contradict their adages due to disconnections between their emotions and their moral compasses, so I assumed real people operated the same way. The complicated character histories of Sarah J. Maas's Throne of Glass taught me to inform people's actions based on their pasts. While reading The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton, I embraced the importance of friendship. 

I care for these characters because I see their flaws, I realized. I see their struggles, and because of that I believe that goodness lies within them, no matter their past.

By superimposing that understanding onto the people in my real life, I learned how to imagine not only other people complexly, but also to myself.

While reading to impress, I hadn't wanted to make mistakes, so I was intolerant of other people's mistakes. Looking back, I was a bitch. I was cold and judgmental; I took pride in pointing out my peers' flaws. By reading to empathize, however, I was able to make room for my peers' emotions, and therefore my own.

Today, people's flaws still shine more brightly than their successes (as do my own), but by contextualizing those flaws as I would those of a character, I am able to offer advice on how to fix them rather than just ruminate in ruination manifesting as spite. By opening my mind to the messiness of my humanity, I have been able to invite others inside.

Throughout high school, reading to empathize taught me how to love and be loved...so much so that by high school graduation, I got choked up saying goodbye to my classmates, and they pulled me into a lung-crushing group hug.

So while, yes, I have been reading for most of my life, reading to empathize is what sparked my desire to write. I want to write characters that invite readers to imagine both themselves and others complexly, just as the books I read in high school did for me.