You feel the excitement overwhelming your body, a need for release, something to ground you. You clench your toes into the soft carpet of your elementary homeroom. Refocusing yourself back on the page. The knight moves closer to the castle. You know he’ll kill the dragon and save the princess you just know it. Flipping to the next page, you continue to read of his struggles of how hot the fire is, how the knight’s swords just won’t quite cut through the “scales” whatever that is you guess that it’s the hard outer part of dragons as they are notoriously hard to cut. As the story is about to reach its zenith, you are interrupted. 

“Hey Duncan.” 

Prying your eyes away from the book, you turn towards your friend. He has a huge smile on his face, a pep in his step, and a book in his hands. 

“You should read this one once you’re done with your book. It’s really really really great.” 

You don’t know how it could be better than your current book, but the more, the merrier. With a hint of anxiety, you ask the question that really matters. 

“Is it fantasy?” 

“Yah” 

Oh, fantastic. You’d never really gotten the hang of nonfiction books. Your teacher and parents tell you they have important things to say, but they’re just not as cool. 

“But, umm, it’s reading level z.” 

“Oh” 

All that excitement that was flooding your body twists ugly. Turing into a storm of anxiety. All the haste with which you were turning the pages of the book switches to trepidation as you flip to the front of the book. There at the top right of the little booklet the letter B stands. It feels almost accusatory. The second letter of the alphabet. The second lowest reading level you can have in the class. You sneak a quick peek at the shelf holding all the books. Almost all the books in Z are gone and a few in Y. 

“Thanks, I’ll read it soon.” 

You’d worked so hard. All those times you were taken out of English class to take a “Special” class. All those afternoons you spent with the tutor instead of out wish your friends. Yet here you are still at the second lowest, the second worst. Whatever excitement for the story, no the frustration in your hand crumbled. You didn’t need to know what the knight did, whether the dragon died, or the princess was saved. After all, you’d probably just mess up which words were which and end up confused. 

Meekly standing up, you put the book back into its slot on the shelf, pushing it a bit harder than you strictly needed to. Seeking some escape from the shame and sadness assaulting your mind, you look around the classroom. Your eyes catch a worksheet sitting half out of your bag, a piece of math homework you hadn’t done yet. 

Its presence brings a spark of confidence into the maelstrom of shame you put yourself in. Working on it brings a smile to your face. Your memories of math are the opposite of your memories of English. Instead of encouragement, it’s confidence; instead of pity, there’s pride. 

That spark grew into a small fire, just enough to keep you warm for the rest of the day. 

As you get ready for bed that night, your father enters the room. 

“Read for your bedtime story.” 

Curling up under your blankets, you scruch over to give him room. 

“Right then, last we left off, Frodo had just escaped the nasgool with Arvwin …” 

The fire of confidence in your mind vanished, but that was okay because all the shame and sadness of the day vanished with it. In your mind, there is nothing but the story. 

My journey with reading and writing has been tumultuous. I was born dyslexic, and it held me back in so many ways. My childhood was full of extra lessons, extra attention, and extra tutors, culminating in me going to a school for children with learning disabilities—all to get me to a reading level that everybody else was born with. 

This left me with many insecurities about reading and writing, which I didn’t really recover from for a long time. I’ve always loved stories but was unwilling to reach them through the medium of English. This aversion to English pushed me into my love of video games and television. 

It was only in college that I started to discover my love for reading. My first experience at college was a dark time. Full of thoughts similar to those of when I was a child. I was struggling in class and hiding in my dorm rooms, searching for anything to shield me from negativity. I found solace in stories. In escapism. When I ran out of video games, I turned to movies. When I ran out of film, I ran towards the television. When I ran out of books, I finally returned to books. I read through all the fantasy books I could before finding my home. Web novels. They’re not the most polished or the most unique. But there are a lot of them. 

I’m not the only one to feel stupid in school. It’s a universal experience. The first time you realize the world isn’t yours to grab. The first time you understand that you might not be smart enough, charming enough, or athletic enough to get what you want. Then we do the same thing we all do when we get hurt: build up walls. For me, it was to run away from anything related to English, which stopped me from finding my greatest refuge for over a decade. I’ve seen this countless times, with people saying they’re just not math people or that they should just sit on the sidelines in the gym. I can’t help but wonder how many people have been kept away from what they could grow to love because of the walls we put up as children. We put up walls because our education system is more interested in pushing people through an assembly line than nurturing the future. 

Escaping through stories has been a core part of my life for as long as I can remember. Despite this, reading has most certainly not been. Throughout my entire childhood and into my 20s, I resented having to read. Now, though, I can’t think of a more joyous thing. I love reading with all my heart and can’t wait to learn more about it.