Life as narrative

My life is a string of narratives, and not in the academic sense. The books I've read have become the stitching of my life. Tell me a story about your life and I'll point to a book it reminds me of. Every emotion, every thought, every idea and every line I have written finds a corollary in a book I have read.

Literature is an escape from my life and is my life, it is my religion and my occupation, the basis of friendships and my only friend.

I've been reading since I was seven - when someone broke into our house and stole the TV, so my father took us to the library to keep us occupied. I can remember the pages of my first book (crocodiles swimming in a crowded landscape, where no matter how many times you looked you always found something new), but not the title.

I remember climbing trees to read in their uppermost branches, sitting in sunshine with a book, listening to thunder and lightning punctuate dialogue, reading in the light from the passage after bedtime, sitting on the school bus with these friends. The smell of certain books. The plastic slips over the covers. My preference for paperbacks which has lately shifted to hardcovers. The bruises between my thumb and forefinger from holding them up.

My day begins and ends with books. I read over breakfast. (Well, under breakfast, literally, because I usually hold the pages open by placing my bowl on them.) I read in bed. I read in between too.

Some books possess me, others bore me, some make me think, many more fuel existential crises, others inspire me or challenge me or just baffle me; there are those that claim me, refine my principles, change my mind, teach me, lambast me, require more of me, allow me to be less than perfect, and of course, entertain me.

How sad, that I have little else to say for my life. How alone I am. How lonely. How privileged I am that I have had so many meaningful conversations. That I have the language to tell my story and those of others, that I have lived so many lives and met so many people, and loved them all. Even the vile ones.

The stitching of my life is multi-coloured and various. It holds my own narrative together. Most people have a crutch, I think, and this is mine. But I am not afraid of mine, nor ashamed, nor lame without it. It has taught me to tell other stories and see into other lives. But perhaps, for every gift, something else is withheld. Perhaps a distance between my world and that of others is the price of this privilege.