The Trouble With Love

The good news: my friends don't need to run out and buy me wedding presents quite yet, but then again, silver linings are usually attached to a cloud. In this particular case, which I am about to share with you, the cloud is obsession.

It all started when I was in kindergarten. I remember the day clearly. My class had gone to the school library where we were all to take out two books to read. And that's where I stop remembering so clearly; either my books were about kitties or ballerinas. Perhaps both. At any rate, I went home with two books from my school library. Then some more things happened that day that I don't remember well, but then we get back to the point. I was sitting on my bed, snuggled up with the blankets, ready to take a leap and read a book all by myself. I picked up one of the books. It was small and square, fitting perfectly into my five-year-old hands. A minute or two later, I chucked the book across the room.

Don't ask me why. But as much as I can recall, that was the last time I ever threw a book away from me. Since then, it's been the exact opposite. While most kids spent their summer vacations playing outside all day, I read. I poured over library shelves, pulling out at least a dozen books to take home every week. I participated in every summer reading program there was, earning hundreds of coupons I didn't use. (I was too busy reading more books.) I was sucked in. Every page sang a sweet siren song. I had to read everything!

The fascination hasn't stopped, even now. The other day I decided to read the seven books of the Harry Potter series in seven days. Kinda crazy, I know, but that's why it's called obsession. So as I entrenched myself in the world of magic and Hogwarts, I found that I was slowly losing my grip with reality. By about day 5 of this undertaking, I wouldn't have been surprised to find people in this world claiming to be witches and wizards. I mean, really, they're all trying to blend in aren't they? (Something about that section 13 of the International Confederation of Warlock's Statute of Secrecy.) By day 6 I was wondering where I could get a wand of my own. And then, on day 7 after I had finished the series, I finally woke up from this "novel" dream I was living.

Seeing as how my time was now free from my Harry Potter craze, I turned to watching a movie, Pirates of the Caribbean. (And, just in case you were wondering, no, I didn't go crazy with this series... I just watched the first one.) But as I watched, I realized the magnitude of my obsession when losing myself in a novel's world. Not only was I seeing magical properties in my reality, I was putting them into other worlds as well. You know this scene from the movie, where Captain Jack Sparrow is locked in the jail? Well, the only thing I could think of at the moment was, "Come on, Jack! Alohomora!"

So then, we come to the words penned by J.K. Rowling for our favorite teacher, Professor Dumbledore: "It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live..."

Lesson learned, professor.