Reading

Did you grow up in a family and environment where reading was encouraged? You are lucky if you have. I was not. Not many books around my family home. I remember some children fairy tale books and some love story magazines. I can’t even remember a newspaper. I started reading books when I left home at the age 16, when I moved in with my brother and his family. I had joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints a few months previously. Going to church, attending Sunday-school and youth meetings has helped and encouraged me to read more. Later I went back to school and studied to become a ‘Kindergartnerin” (preschool educator?) an education where I learned to take care of babies and children until school age. That is when I started to learn and become more interested in the world and knowledge. One subject was Psychology and I loved it (which got me later to study Counseling). It was hard to learn how to study and prepare for exams, but I did it and it was a first, great achievement for me. When I was nearly 20 I moved to England, to be a nanny and to learn English. Not being perfect in German I now had to learn English, but listening and copying others made it fast for me to learn it. I learned spoken English very quickly. I was not afraid to make mistakes and being laughed at by saying things like: ” are you caulifloweried” instead of qualified). I have always loved learning new things. Then after I got married I had the hunger to read more and the first book (I laugh now when I think about it) my husband suggested was “The Hobbits and Lord of the Rings”. Not easy books to read as a foreign. I read them, but I know I did not understand half of what I read. Later I ordered a series of classic books and read one once a month. I am grateful for the opportunity I had later to read more and more, but feel sad for the many years in childhood I missed out of learning, reading and education. Later I was helping my children, then studying to become a Counselor. Over my nearly 20 years as a counselor I read mostly counseling books, anything to do with people and how to help them, and how they had overcome their lives challenges. Now I still read psychology books, novels, autobiographies and Church books. I enjoy belonging to a book club, where we read and discuss a book once a month.