I Want My Own Bookstore

Ever felt as if you have a boulder the size of Mount Kinabalu on your chest?

I have.

A lot.

Hence my compulsion to write, to vent. The more I write, the less weight I feel.

That said, it's not just words I let out that are therapeutic. Letting them in is another joy. The written word is a passion for me, even more so than cooking or music. I'm not comfortable living inside a house that doesn't have books. I go crazy if I can't find my dictionary anywhere. Being locked up inside MPH, Kinokuniya or Borders for a night would be utopia.

As much as I gripe about having to be in KL to study, I find I have a soft spot for this place, and a big part of that is because I can go almost anywhere and lose myself in a bookstore. Holding a book in your hands, feeling it on your fingers, the rasp of paper on paper as you turn the page, the smell of a new book. It's an experience.

I hear parents complaining about their kids not wanting to pick up a single book. My siblings and I never had that problem. If any, it would have been that our allowance wasn't enough to get all the books we wanted. I guess this came from seeing our parents' love of books. To us, reading was just another thing a person does. As we grew older, we developed our love for it, though for different types. It's not unusual for any of us to recieve a phone call from one other and get a book recommendation. And when we get together, we dissect it, discuss it, argue about it and generally have a good time.

One book or another has inspired, enticed, intrigued, amazed, reduced me to childlike glee, even scared the pants out of me. Whatever genre it is I have in my hands, I always come out of it feeling different. Sometimes adventurous, sometimes warm and fuzzy inside. But always, ALWAYS I take it in me, and add it on to myself. So for those who have seen me in an almost-schizophrenic state, no worries. It's just the books trying to meet new people.

In the words of William Hazlitt "Books let us into their souls and lay open to us the secrets of our own."

So it is one of my ambitions, to own a bookstore. Or at least feel as if I can. I need to rake in some moola. Moola makes the world go round. =D