Literary Loner
/Throughout my life, I have kept many of my passions a secret. I believed that their exposure would be detrimental to my social status. Now, being mature enough to understand that popularity is not nearly as important as I once thought, I have decided to periodically confess my guilty pleasures. This is one of those confessions:
I became very fond of my studies at a young age and was very interested in reading. Throughout elementary school, we made weekly trips to the library where we were told to take out as many as three books. Most of the children in my class took out the minimum of one, and the book would stay in the back of their desk until the next trip to the library, where they would do the same. I however, took out two or three books each week and read them thoroughly. I had burned through many series by the time I became a teenager, including Magic Treehouse, The Hardy Boys, Goosebumps and Harry Potter. I had become a keen reader by the time I entered High School.
Ninth grade is usually when you will make friends that will stick through the following three years. This was no different for me, as I fell in with a clique and made many friends. I shared many interests with these new friends including snowboarding and hockey. One thing that none of these new friends were interested in was reading.
Out of fear of rejection, I decided to keep my passion for reading a secret. I piped down in class when we were discussing some of my favourite books like The Catcher In The Rye and To Kill A Mockingbird, even though I had plenty to say on the subject matter. Looking back, I feel that this decision was detrimental to my high school experience. I realize now that even if I were patronized for my passion for reading and knowledge of literature I would have proven to be strong enough to ignore it.
I find it difficult to look back on my four years of high school with regrets, and while I sit reading some of my favourite authors like Mark Twain, J.D Salinger and Stephen King I can’t help but wish that I had been more involved in discussing their literary merit with my teachers and peers.
There’s a lesson here. Be yourself.
Max Carrington is a 21 year-old writing student. In his spare time he can be found in the gym, at the movies, playing sports, listening to music or nestled in a comfortable spot reading literature.
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