In the short time that I’ve lived, I have read too many sad books. Each rivalling the previous with a deep intensity. My love for sad stories started when I was a teenager. I wasn’t always like this. As a child, I would read everything I could lay my hands on, perpetually the book worm of the family. I loved fairy tales, I loved stories with beautiful, happy endings. And if a story ended horribly, I felt so distressed about it and would try to find another angle at which it could have ended instead.
When I became a pimply, gangly teenager, my perspective changed. I was entirely convinced that I had a host of demons at my heels and that that surely there must be something beautiful in the pain of the sad books. I flung myself into their enchanting world where each character was perfectly portrayed with an air of misery. It was always crushingly sad, my heart sagging under the weight of each story as I reviewed with intense scrutiny, trying to unravel the complexities at its seams. Each story was a code for me to decipher. I really wanted to know how the characters could live stoically and still be graceful in the way they were the perfect pieces to that made a perfect whole tale.
One thing can be certain though. These stories were my saving grace -they still are. In a world that made absolutely no sense to be at that time they were an anchor, solidly holding me in place, always helping me find a way to live tranquilly. In their own way, they gave me strength. They provided an alternate world where I could step into, an observer, stealthily watching gulping up each detail with an insatiable thirst. One which still rages to this day.