Why I love Reading! - My Reading Story.

Hi everyone! Today I would love to share with you all, my awesome readers my reading story. Now I will warn you right now this story, my story is going to be quite personal. Things most of you don't know about me will be shared here today. Some good, and some bad but never the less why reading and books has changed my life. 

Have I always loved to read? YES! Even as a baby, books where always in my life. My wonderful parents chose to introduce books to me right from the start. I remember my Mom reading to me Goodnight Moon and the pokey puppy. Even though at that age I mainly looked at the pictures. 

Yep, that's me at age 1. Those are my Dad's sunglasses. :)

As I got older reading was still a very important part of my life. In middle school, I read books like The Babysitters club, Sweet Valley High, Nancy Drew, and so on. I was even caught a few many times secretly reading in class. Now when HS school came around my "reading addiction" flew south for the winter. Why? I was tormented in HS. Bullied, picked on, harassed  any way you look at it was not good. Kids can be mean, just ignore them, don't react because that makes them want to do it more. My teachers gave excuses on a daily basic. Did they work? No. Day in, Day out was a living HELL for me. When I was 8 years old I was diagnosed with a medical disorder called, Tourette's Syndrome. If you don't know what this is click here. If you do know anything about this medical disorder than you may know what "Coprolalia" is. Basically it goes along with the TS. I cursed, a lot and while I had no control over this the kids in my HS thought it was the funniest thing they have ever heard. They would nick-name me, echo it back, push me, slap me, throw food at me, and these are only the minor things that they did to make my life hell. As hard as I had it with the kids picking on me I struggled to do well in school. Between HS, grades, and the constant torture I was forced to endure reading took the back burner in my life. Reading was not longer fun for me. With everything going on I lost interest in books. 

As few years after HS I moved in sunny Florida. My first time living on my own. I worked, visited with family, and got addicted to many sites on the web like Gaiaonline.com. Still there were no books in my life. Reading just didn't interest me anymore. About 4 1/2 years ago while still living in Florida I had a accident. I fell backwards in the shower and hurt my back; pretty badly. I was now living with chronic pain in my back, legs, and even my "seat". I was told my doctors I would most likely live in pain the rest of my life. I spent a good amount of my days in bed, bored and hurting. One day (which was a decent pain day) I visited a local book store. While I was there I overheard some girls talking about a book series about Vampires. Being the outgoing person I am, I walked over to ask one of the girl what book they were talking about. Of course, you can probably guess what series I learned about. TWILIGHT. For once I found myself intrigued  wanting to find out more about this book and author. I went out the next week and bought the book. I ended up reading it in one day. Sparkly Vampires?! Who knew? Now I  hungered for more books like Twilight. I researched other vampire books out there. I was captivated that there was so many different books out there, ones I never knew existed and longed to read, and read, and read more. I went on buying binges, visited my local library, and scouted the web for new books. 

Books made me feel alive again. I ended up moving back to NC in the winter of 2010 to be closer to my family (parents and sister). My pain took on a whole new high. I was in more pain than ever and struggled to continue reading. After many (9) shots in my spine, meds, physical therapy things started to become bearable for me again. Books once again were a huge part of my life. One day while browsing the web I came across this thing called a blog. A blog all about books and reading. "How awesome is that?" was my first thought. Weeks went by and after visiting more and more book blogs, getting reading recommendations, and entering giveaways I thought, "Hey! I want to own a book blog". "I can totally see myself doing one of these", and so I did, as you can see. hehe! Bittersweet Enchantment became my baby. With a lot of hard work and dedication my blog grew, and grew. Now not only do I adore reading again, I enjoy sharing my love for it books with all of you. 

I found that you sometimes just need to find the "right" book or genre's in order to enjoy reading. Since then I read a wide variety of books, and genre's. YA and Adult. Mostly YA! ;)

Reading has become my escape . I am able to go into another world, another time and live there. (figuratively speaking, of course)  Forgetting my pain, my past, and just living in the now. 

In a way, I feel books have saved my life in so many ways. Reading, blogging, meeting authors, and new friends all have made me finally feel whole and happy. 

So, thank you to those girls in the bookstore who told me all about Edward and Bella, thank you to all authors who write books for us readers to enjoy, and thank you to YOU! Yes, you reading this now. Without YOU  Bittersweet Enchantment would nothing more than a dream that once was. 

I know, I know, this post is super long but if you have read it completely,Thank you!! YOU ROCK! A lot of what I wrote was very hard for me to put into words. I just feel that I needed to tell you about myself and my journey.  I don't know where my life will be 5 or 10 years down the road but one thing I know without a doubt is reading will always have a place in my heart!

Once again, thank you for reading. I would love to hear your thoughts on my reading story. Comments are always welcome!