The Sound of Reading

The best sound in the whole world is the soft fluttering of pages turning, my friends quietly reading in the yellow lighting of my living room. Each person is in their own spot on the deep brown couches, thoughts racing through their mind. Their bodies change positions, heads bowed towards their books as plots climax and resolve. Silence turns to questions as snacks are requested. Chips and candy are opened and then the discussion of the magic within the pages begins. Laughter and debate ring through the house, as characters who make silly decisions are judged, authors are cursed for their cliffhangers, and plot holes are uncovered. This is the sound of reading.

It all started with my love of stories, they are the way through which I see the world, how I process emotions and learn new things, and how I find my best ideas and relax. My passion for stories, and reading specifically, comes from my parents. Starting at an early age, they made sure I kept up with my reading. Forever giving me 2 choices: either, I could read a chapter and then play with friends, or I could not read and stay home. Although it didn’t inspire love at first, once I found a good book I couldn’t stop. My parents continued to encourage reading through trips to the library, exploring new genres with me, and of course buying as many books as I could possibly ask for. It was the perfect life for a bookworm and really shaped my perspective on reading. Mainly I associate it with feelings of family, friends, and comfort. 

With these feelings instilled in me, reading became a constant activity, especially in middle school. My friends used to come over and we would have our weekly reading ritual, to us there was nothing like the comfortable silence of reading with your friends. Of hearing the gasp of someone getting into their story. But I soon discovered that the best part was getting to talk about books with friends when we took snack breaks, quickly becoming our favorite pastime. The enormous amount of passion for reading filled the day as we caught each other up on the stories we were reading. Books tied us together, into a knot so tight it still exists today.

That knot didn’t come easy. Although this is one of my greatest passions in life, I have to admit it did limit me in ways I couldn’t imagine as a kid. I didn’t talk to others much, typically choosing to sit on the side and read instead. And being alone with your head stuck in a book doesn’t typically create the best social disposition. I am naturally shy but all the time spent reading made meeting new people especially hard for me. Books were my comfort zone during a time when meeting people was a scary new idea, and I didn’t always know how to do what was best for me. Meaning I didn’t learn how to converse with people until I took my head out of my books and put it back into my life. 

This memory represents my triumph over social awkwardness. It proved to me that I could have both reading and friends and that all I needed was balance. Even now I find it hard to talk to new people and would rather just be reading on my phone, but I work hard to ensure this does not become the case. If there’s one lesson to take away from all of this it’s definitely to try to live in the moment. To be present and with the people who make you happy, and to find that balance in your life between escaping from reality and being a part of it. Now I allow reading to have its place in my life but not overtake it. It shows me that I don’t have to give up what I love but rather make room for something new. That not every moment should be stuck in a book, or else I will miss the colorful moments and people that make up the sound of reading.