Getting Lost in Someone Else's Story

I love getting lost in someone else’s story. 

It isn’t about forgetting my own life, as dull or crazy as it might be, and it isn’t about wishing away my present circumstances, good or bad.  Rather, it’s about trying on someone else’s shoes for a time then kicking them off again only to realize that something about those other shoes has changed me.

Good or bad. No matter how one looks at it, reading changes a person.  As soon as one picks up a book and starts to read, the transformation begins.

I believe that books have this transformative power when the reader moves beyond the syllables of the page and absorbs the ideas of the book into their own life.  When I laugh or cry or curse because of something I’ve read, that story has become part of me. When I’ve closed the cover for the final time, but the contents refuse to leave me alone, that story has become part of me.  And when what I’ve read compels me to hash it out with my hubby or a friend, that story has become part of me.

I am different than I was before.

I’ve changed.

And that is why I love to read.