Take me back to the basics and the simple life. Tell me all of the things that make you feel at ease

It occurs to me that I don’t have a favorite book. Per se. Like, I have books I really love, and since I’ve got the actual worst appreciation for details I can read things over and over again without remembering most of the plot or the punchline. (Even mysteries…I’m blessed, I know.)

As such I’m not sure that I’d classify something I reread often as necessarily my favorite, you know?

What makes this whole thing even stranger is the fact that I have a favorite in a lot of other areas. TV? Probably Doctor Who (because River, okay). Movie? Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid unless I’m sick and then it’s most definitely Miracle. Music? Needtobreathe, hands down. (Or EXO but it’s kind of embarrassing to admit my love for kpop in person.)

Most of the people who know me even a little know all of the above about my preferences, but I doubt if I asked them about my favorite book that they’d have an accurate answer. Of course, I might just be forgetting something glaringly obvious here, but I got a good amount of sleep last night so I’m pretty sure I really just don’t have one.

I asked a friend about this—actually, more like he doesn’t really have any strong feelings for Harry Potter and so I’m over here like, um do you like anything?!—and he told me his fave is a book he hasn’t read in a while but can really relate to. Naturally I racked my brain for any books I love to read and read again, wondering if any of them really spoke to me on that level. My conclusion? Not really.

The Horse and His Boy, for instance. I grew up listening to the Focus on the Family radio theater version of the Narnia series on repeat. Of the seven books The Horse and His Boy is easily the one I like the best, but it’s not like I often encounter talking horses who want to go with me as we run away to the north.

Other options that I’d classify under the fantasy/magic genre include The Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinley and the entirety of the Half Magic series but most particularly Half Magic itself. I like Howl’s Moving Castle, and all of Harry Potter of course, and when I’m home with my original collection I really, really like digging out The Goose Girl or Graceling.

In short, I like books that aren’t about the real world. In short—again—I’m on the cusp of entering the real world myself and appreciate the effortlessness with which I can lose myself in these stories. They aren’t about people who have to look for work prior to a big move—Seattle, in my case—or who have to write a 60-85 thesis or who don’t know how to pay taxes but certainly hope they’ll make enough next year to have to file. That same friend, the one who I’m still trying to convince to give HP a try, told me he reads nonfiction because they’re about real humans who gave life their best—or not—and can offer a little insight into how he and I, and everyone else struggling to leave their childhood behind without wilting completely under the weight of adulthood, might better survive.

What drags me deeper into the anxiety of graduating this May and still not entirely knowing what I want to do other than just write is precisely what makes him feel a little bit better about this whole adulting thing. Somehow we’re friends despite this and it’s kind of amazing because I really don’t get the appeal of reading about others’ very real successes and failures when I could be reading about something so completely imaginary that it pulls me far away from reality.

I wrote before about escapism, I think. Maybe…And here we have it in it’s finest form.

Strangely enough I’m not really bothered by this. It’s cool that my friend has what he likes to read and I do too; no one said we had to have the same opinions about books just because our Myers-Briggs letters are exactly the same. In fact, something that brought me and my best friend together is a book we both happened to randomly stumble across. It came up in conversation somehow like the first or second time we met and we’ve been friends since. (It helps that she likes Needtobreathe and once loved the Jonas Brothers as much as I do/did but whatevs, moot point.) She’s a goose feather of an ENFP to my very rigid ISTJ and some of our likes converge as much as they sometimes really differ.

I’m not sure what my point is in bringing this up, other than to maybe acknowledge that people are different and not everyone has to have a favorite book. And I’m not any less of an avid reader because of the fact that I don’t have one.

At the very least I’m not the kind of person to casually name drop Catcher in the Rye or Pride and Prejudice as my absolute fave at a cocktail party. Not that I go to cocktail parties…But the point remains: If you have a favorite, great! Tell people about it so they can understand you a little better since I truly believe that what you read reflects who you are, what you believe, and what your values are.

But if you don’t? That’s great too. I mean really, what better excuse to go out and read the world than that?

**Title: “EASE” by Troye Sivan**

Brother let me be your shelter; I’ll never leave you all alone. I can be the one you call when you’re low.

So it’s been five months. More than that, actually. And I’ve admittedly been quite distracted. The problem with keeping a blog–as I’ve probably mentioned before–is that I struggle to write without inspiration; in other words, blog posts appear sporadically and only when I feel I need to write or else I’ll burst from unexpressed thoughts.

It’s not that I haven’t been writing, or that I’ve been expressing every thought that’s crossed my mind from April until today. Instead it’s more like I got distracted by life and didn’t allow myself the downtime to contemplate. But now I’m back in New York and real life is about to start again and tomorrow at 7:30 in the AM I’ll be welcoming first years to my awesome university (#NYUWelcomeWeek) while I contemplate what it means to be a senior. Basically it means that adult life is going to begin much sooner than anticipated and I don’t know if I’m ready for that yet. Hence graduate school.

But being a senior also means availability as a mentor to those incoming students who are just as lost and alone as I was during my first semester in the Big Apple. This path isn’t for everyone, of course, since mentoring requires actual interpersonal skills that some people just don’t have. Thankfully my ISTJ-ness doesn’t extend that far. And I’m all about paying it forward anyway.

I’m not talking about “Oh, I was nominated to pour a bucket of ice water over myself and donate money to a worthy cause so I’m going to post a video of it on Facebook and tag other people” kind of paying it forward. I’m talking someone smiles at you, then you smile back and go on to smile at the next person you see. Or someone buys your coffee? You pay for the next person’s laundry at the laundromat because the Lord knows that making clothes clean gets mad expensive after awhile.

Or someone takes the time and effort to get to know you and connect with you and learn about your ambitions and continue to maintain that relationship even after he has graduated? You do the same for someone else. It’s nice to have someone who thinks you’re special and who values you. It’s even nicer to have someone like that with whom you aren’t romantically involved.

There is someone in my life who is that person to me. So I want to be that person to someone else. For example’s sake, he’s the Diana to my Anne and I want to be the Diana to another person’s Anne. Because yes, it is possible to both have a friend and be one. What often happens is that the person you call a best friend might not call you that in return; I wouldn’t say that he and I are best friends, but I know I can come to him with anything and that he’ll be there for me regardless. And that’s rare.

The fact that he knows the same about me and values me the same way I value him? That’s just icing on the cake. So here’s to you, Black Bear. I hope you realize what an impact you’ve made on my life and know that you’re stuck with me now cause you’re the older brother this Red Panda never had.

**Title: “Brother” by NEEDTOBREATHE**