Opening my eyes

I'm only just beginning to understand now how much I've learned through all my reading for pleasure.  It started with simple things, like knowing what uncommon words meant: "Quahog? I thought everyone knew what that meant. Or did I learn that from Jacob Have I Loved?" Then it branched out to realizing I learned cultural history and social mores from Austen, Gilded Age transportation and economics from Edith Wharton, and it just goes on from there.  I keep reading because it keeps opening my eyes.

The books are friends, too.  Some are turned to on sleepless nights, others when I'm going through something I just want to forget.  What did I do in high school during the last couple weeks in my childhood home before my family moved?  I re-read Anne's House of Dreams from the Anne of Green Gables series, reading the last page on the night before we moved, crying as Anne left her perfect house for the last time to move on with her life.   Books give me what I need, even if it's not always something that I want.