My schooldays mark the point where my memory begins. I have almost no memories from before I started school – just a couple of snapshots that have stuck, like photographs.
Even those aren’t ones I particularly treasure. They’re more the kind of memory you register in passing – oh, there’s a bit of residue left – and move on from. My schooldays survive as a string of episodes.
Many of those scenes take place inside the library. I spent most of my schooldays there. The library was packed with desks and chairs that gave you just enough discomfort and just enough privacy.
The temperature and humidity were just right too. In that space of just-rightness, I felt at ease. I could arrive early and leave late.
There, I skimmed through countless books, wrestled with countless problems, and wrote out countless words. I kept at it steadily, never quite sure whether it was efficient or not.
What that space of just-rightness left me with was the shape of an adequate student, a soul that had had no end of stories pass through it, and a backside that had gone rather numb.
That memory of a beginning has come back round to me now that I’m well into the middle of my life. And I find myself making similar memories again.
There’s one small difference. Back then, there were few options besides going to the library. Now it’s different. There are countless things I could be doing instead.
And yet I still go to the library. I go there now with a clear purpose. I’ve chosen the library as the place where I prepare to build the life, the version of myself, that I want.
Here, I prepare for the future I want. I didn’t realise it at the time, but the library was where people with goals gathered, even back in my schooldays. That gathered will generates an energy all of its own.
They say if you want to be rich, stay close to rich people. I’m in the library because I want to become someone who turns their goals into reality. And this place is full of exactly that kind of energy.
