Any other bookworms out there?

I am a bookworm. No doubt about it. Despite, the close relationship between bookworminess and nerdiness, I have always been proud of this fact. One very special memory from my childhood involves me walking into the house, running to find my mom with my first book behind my back. I can't remember what it was- probably "Cathy and Mark" or something like it. But I felt that my journey had started. I could read!

Growing up, I was not great at making friends. I was very thoughtful and extremely sensitive and perhaps a bit of an 'old soul' but for whatever reason in around Grade 2 I started to bring my books to school with me. I would sit on a swing and imagine myself riding my own special pony. As I grew older, I devoured books. Whatever was in the house. As quickly as I could finish it. It wasn't a competition to be a fast reader...it was more a need to know "what happened". I would curl up during the holidays and read all day and all night. Immersed in anything from "Jane Eyre" and "Sense and Sensability" to the "Famous Five" and oooh...horse books like "A horse called Wonder".

Reading didn't just increase my vocabulary or sharpen my imagination. Books helped me choose people I wanted to be friends with, boys I was interested in and I suppose gave me my own, albeit, mixed up, sense of values. When life got tough, I had my bookshelf filled with my 'classics'. I could hide away in plain sight-escape to a place where things were more orderly. Up to this day, if I am sad or hurt there are a few books that I will pick up and start reading. I don't really need to read them anymore. I know every word...every character but it calms me. Some books even provide me mantra's that I live by:

"Fear is the original sin. Almost all of the evil in the world has its origin in the fact that some one is afraid of something.It is a cold slimy serpent coiling about you. It is horrible to live with fear; and it is of all things degrading."
— L.M. Montgomery (The Blue Castle)