rough draft college essay dont make fun i need it here in case i lose it like all my other essays
I can’t remember where my fascination with books first began. My earliest memories of my childhood are of me struggling to use the light that crept into my room from the hallway in order to read my books. At the age of eight, I was already reading hundred page “chapter” books. When I was nine years old my mother had to buy me a bookcase that took up a significant amount of space in my small room just to hold all the books I’d read. I anticipated the beginning of each month, because that was when my shipment of five or six books would come in from the Scholastic Book Club I belonged to, but even that wasn’t enough. By the middle of the month I was asking my mom to take me to the bookstore all over again.
When it comes to books, I’ve had my stages. It’s hard to believe, but I’ve read close to two hundred Baby-Sitter Club books. After I grew “too old” for those books, I moved onto other reading material. For awhile, in the midst of puberty and struggling to achieve social conformity, I stuck strictly to magazines as my source of enrichment in my life. However- slowly, but surely- I came back to my favorite pastime. I came to learn of different authors’ styles and who my favorite authors were. This newfound privilege- being able to discover who I liked and what I wanted to read- empowered my love of reading and challenged me to read more. I enjoyed reading the works of authors such as J.D. Salinger, Mitch Albom, Nicholas Sparks, and Steven Levenkron. As a young adult, when I began to understand politics, I began reading many politically biased books, as well as bi-partisan literature.
Though I can’t pinpoint a date, somewhere along the line I began folding down the pages of good parts in a book or underlining quotes that I found interesting. Soon, my books were all marked up. I became fascinated with various quotes. We all have our own perception of what lessons a quote was meant to demonstrate and so, to me, these quotes were meaningful because they could be interpreted into an immeasurable amount of interpretations. They could be significant to a person of any race, sex, or religious background. However, the most meaningful quote I’ve come across was not found in a book. It was written to me in a letter from my grandmother while I was on a retreat at Shelter Island.
"You know, memories are very important because they are the only thing that you can really hold onto. Pictures, jewelry, and letters can be lost, but you always have your memories," my grandmother wrote. No matter how many books I’ve read or will read, the outcome of what I learn will never amount to the knowledge I’ve acquired by applying my grandmother’s quote to the way I live. I can read Salinger’s curious ways of explaining life, and Albom’s lessons on how, “The only time wasted is the time we spend thinking we are alone.” I can analyze Sparks’ perception of love, and I can read all the political literature ever written- yet it would not have impacted my life as much as my grandmother’s words did.
As a teenager, it’s hard to differentiate what’s real and what’s an abstraction. We’re blinded by our juvenile priorities and the incoherent messages our peers continually send. Valuable lessons have yet to be learned- as we are still under the wing of our youthful ignorance. So, despite the many odds against me, I am confident that my grandmother’s words have helped me greatly through a struggle that I am not yet done with. I have come to realize that the superficial will die; it will not last forever and, in effect, our priorities must be set in accordance. I came to realize this recently when I, unfortunately, also realized that family members won’t be around forever. I’ve had my share of family deaths and my family has also seen the recurrence of the malignant hands of cancer too many times.
While applying my grandmother’s words to my life, I’ve come to realize that memories are one of the most important parts of life. It would be foolish for us to overlook our memories; they hold our past and determine our future. Memories hold all that has shaped us: family members, difficult experiences, lessons learned, and, in my case, books we’ve read. All of these undoubtedly hold a significant place in our hearts, and keeping them in our hearts will allow a part of them to stay with us forever.