Who was your first crush? A boy in your Sunday school class? A teen heartthrob from television? For me, it was books. I honestly can't remember being very interested in boys until I was in my 20s. For sure, I had crushes here or there but they weren't intense or mind-consuming the way my love for a novel could be. A boy never kept me up at night or made me defy my parents, but novels frequently did. I used to get told off for staying up late reading and would devise ways to read under my covers so my mother wouldn't see the light in my room when it was well past my bedtime. I'd skip meals, social occasions, almost anything for a book. I was not so romantic about books to wonder why my life did not imitate one or wonder why no person seemed to stir my heart the way a book could--I rarely thought about things that way at all. I didn't really worry that I wasn't dating or attracted to anyone until I was in my mid-twenties and by then I figured I would just be a spinster eventually living alone with a large wolfhound and mountain of books. I wasn't even sad about this supposed fate! Wolfhounds are so sweet and a book is brilliant company. Imagine my surprise when I met Thomas at twenty-six and nearly fell in love on the spot (again I don't truly believe in love at first sight, but I do have to admit that I felt a connection to him the very first night we met and things moved quickly for us). To sweeten the picture, one of Thomas's first gifts to me was a first edition of my favorite novel--which he also read! Obviously the way to this girl's heart. I don't even remember what the first book that made me love reading was because I never remember a time I didn't love reading...
CONVERSATION