Art always has a muse. It may be the inspiration or a foundation of a character, but something pushes artists to create a separate reality from what we know. People say art imitates life, but they often don’t see that life can also imitate art. For me, literature wasn’t introduced to me through people, people were introduced to me through literature. It was books that connected me to people; not the other way around.

Growing up, I lived just outside Detroit. For me, I never noticed anything off, because I never knew anything different. I was born after the race riots, so the burned homes and boarded up windows were normal for me. There was never an emphasis on reading. The teachers focused more on math and science but never dedicated true time to teach us to appreciate literature. When I was about to enter first grade, I moved to Illinois. I was always a bit socially awkward, so meeting new people was hard for me. On top of that, Illinois was an incredibly different landscape. I saw haphazard streets instead of the neat grid system I knew. I saw cornfields instead of blackened buildings. I was out of my element and didn’t know how to connect with people. It seemed like we had nothing in common. Because of this, I threw myself into school and all things academia. With this, my love of reading grew. I remember being resentful that kids who were more advanced could check out more books. I visited the library at least three times a week to get a new book. The librarian knew who I was, but I still couldn’t check out more than two books. She tried to limit me to two books a week. I pushed back. I became a voracious reader.

Sometimes I read in math class with my book hidden under the desk. It wasn’t an issue until my third-grade teacher took my book, read the ending, and threatened to spoil it. Needless to say, I only read during the reading time from that point on. While other kids played outside after school, I would curl up on the sofa under a blanket and read whatever new novel had captivated my interest. When I was in fifth grade, I lost a majority of my friends to… unpleasant experiences. Because of this, I went into the cesspool that is middle school without any people to rely on. So when I couldn’t depend on people, I turned to books once again. This time around, I discovered the young adult genre. It was game-changing. Everything was all of a sudden more interesting, complex. There the protagonists weren’t just heroes, they were anti-heroes and morally grey characters.  For me, the idea of an antihero helped me connect to the books I read more. Sure, we may not have magic in our world, but we do know people who have murky morals, or people who don’t fight just because the world needs them. It made it easier to relate to their trials; it was someone whole thought processes I could understand. Yes, they end up saving the world, but the underlying guilt of acting selfishly at some point is something that everyone carries with them. These characters became the people that I turned to when I had an issue. What would Halt do? Maybe asking what a hero would do is more realistic, but I wasn’t a hero. I wouldn’t make the same choices as them. But these protagonists who were selfish, greedy, and wanted what they could never have. They were the ones who were the most realistic. I was unable to connect with people, but I found their spirit in these characters. It was a one-sided conversation, but a conversation nonetheless.

Later in life when I acted out, my parents would punish me, but never by taking away books. When it was getting late at night, my mom would look into my room. If I was on my phone, she always said, “Go to bed, it’s too late for you to be on that thing.” If I was reading, she said, “Go to bed at a reasonable hour.” and shut the door. Eventually, another girl at school saw the book I was reading and struck up a conversation. The girl was Maya Kathinokkula, who would become one of my closest friends. Others would talk with me about the new Cassandra Clare book, or what we thought about the next installment of Ranger’s Apprentice. Maya introduced me to the classics, and so we read them together and talked about what we thought they meant. I had always turned to books when I was isolated, but in the end, it was books that found my family.

When I entered high school, I found myself alone once again. A majority of my friends went to Naperville Central, and I felt awkward without them. During my freshman year, it wasn’t uncommon to find me spending my lunch hour reading while I ate, entranced in whatever novel I had that day. As time went by, I had less and less of it for reading. I joined clubs and picked up AP classes; I never stopped moving. Despite this, I would always try to have a book in my backpack, ready to read in my spare time. As I tried to find what I wanted to do with my life, I realized that I didn’t even know what I wanted. I didn’t know who I wanted to be. So like with every other problem I faced, I turned to books.

Books for me are a sort of portable magic; when the world gets too mundane or scary, you can always retreat to a fantasy where the protagonist always wins. Words, to me, are special. They hold power over who we are, and how we view ourselves. I feel that I share the uncommon opinion of loving literature, of loving books and writing. I feel odd that I take time out of my day to do so. Books taught me, however, that there is a beauty to being odd, to be “quirky”. It sets you up to be the protagonist of your own story. I still try and keep up with my favorite authors, and I still try to find new books. But now, reading is less about trying to find another world and more about trying to find another lens to see our world with.