Some stories stay longer than others.
7:20 in the morning.
Trying to sleep earlier lately.
Trying to feel less exhausted.
Coffee brewing.
Hands around my face.
Eyes closed.
Thinking back.
I grew up not liking reading.
My dad tried to get me into books when I was little.
But he wanted me to read things about the Mexican Revolution.
Mexican culture.
Mexican history.
And I was like:
“Dude… I’m eight.”
I wanted monsters.
Aliens.
Other worlds.
So I hated reading for a long time.
Then one day in school…
I had to read Flowers for Algernon.
The book was thin.
That’s the only reason I gave it a chance.
Usually, for book reports, I’d read:
- the beginning
- a few random pages in the middle
- the ending
- the back cover
And somehow fake my way through it.
But this time…
I actually read it.
And I remember something strange happening.
I started crying.
A book was making me cry.
People that didn’t even exist…
were making me cry.
That blew my mind.
The main character, Charlie Gordon, starts off mentally disabled.
Then through an experiment…
he slowly becomes intelligent.
Brilliant even.
He falls in love.
Starts understanding the world differently.
Starts becoming more aware.
And then…
it starts fading away.
He begins losing it all.
Going backwards.
That part hit me hard.
The magic didn’t last forever.
Looking back now…
I think that book taught me something I didn’t fully understand back then.
If you can walk…
think…
feel…
speak…
love…
express yourself…
you already have a lot.
Probably more than you realize.
💬 Reader question
What’s a story that affected you emotionally more than you expected?
Subscribe
If this felt real… I write moments like this.
Leave a Reply