Until I was seven, I could not read. 

Ever since I was in first grade, I had a secret. Whenever my teacher read books out loud, I’d memorize every word, repeating them over and over in my head. Pretending my mind was a recorder, I’d replay each sentence to make sure it stuck. Every day I played this game. Not for fun. But for survival. 

Anything with small print was my absolute archnemisis. The chapter books along the back of our classroom were the death zone. My level was stuck on reading picture books, which already felt like a taxing quest. I struggled to string the sentences into words, therefore my only weapon was remembering. 

“Madison, will you read the next part out loud? Starting at ‘The blue ball.’” My teacher’s request felt like she was asking me if I wanted to embarrass myself forever.  As braced myself for battle, I began to recall all of the words from the book. Whenever it was my turn to read in class, I would simply recite the book out of memory. My secret was safe.

However, I forgot to calculate one important factor: my teacher changed all the books for the comprehension test. I could only outsmart the system for so long before accepting that I continuously mixed up the order of letters. The game had changed. And, I missed the software update.

At night when my parents thought I was asleep, I’d hear my parents, in hushed voices, weighing my learning difficulties and their permanence. “What are we going to do with her?” My mom whispered — her words laced with a fraught apprehension. Rolling my eyes, I wanted to burst into my parents’ room and shout, “Jeez, it’s just reading! You guys sound like I’m dying of cancer. What’s the big deal?” But my secret was no longer a secret. All of the lines on the page looked like modern art and I felt like a simpleton trying to decode some hidden meaning. And, when my teacher asked to meet my parents after school, I knew it was not for my stellar doodles in the margins of my worksheets. 

Thus, my boot camp began. The summer between second and third grade, my parents bought children’s books from Costco. I was drilled with reading every morning and evening. I remember reading about “Mad Dog.” Begrudgingly flipped through the pages, I thought to myself: “I bet he was a mad dog and not a happy dog because his parents were making him do summer school.” And, for some reason, the Costco starter pack had a plethora of short stories on baseball. “Seriously, who picks these books?” Sighing, I preferred “My Little Pony.” 

While I continued practicing to read, the letters felt like alphabet soup in my mind. As I tried to take in a spoonful of a sentence, the letters mixed around like noodles in tomato soup. That summer left me starving for anything fun. 

To lighten my spirits, my parents decided to rent out the first Harry Potter movie from the library. I was enchanted, fully convinced my Hogwarts letter would come any day. Soon, Harry Potter graced my imagination and young heart with a different kind of magic. The magic of whimsical wonderlands, the magic of faraway fantasies, the magic of stories.  

“If you really liked the movie, there are books”, my dad suggested. “However, I don’t think you can get through the books yet.” Because I still greatly struggled with reading, my dad and I went to the library to check out the audiobook. On the way out of the library, I stopped by the chapter book section, picking up the book edition as well. Every night, I’d slip a CD into my little Hello Kitty CD player. Listening to the audiobook, I’d follow along with the hardcover in my hand, tracing each little letter and word. The rewind button became my best friend. I replayed every word. I replayed every sentence. I replayed until the orderly black lines became distinguishable into comprehendible words.  

Thank God as a child, I was always quite stubborn and intense. I loved to compete. I refused to lose. And, I was most definitely not losing to little blobs of black squiggly lines on a page. No way. Black letters on the page formed an orderly infantry of soldiers marching into battle. And, it was war. To win was to read. To read was to win. 

After countless hours next to my little CD player, I finally made it through “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.” I began my routine. Every time I wanted to read a book, I’d go to the library to check out both the audiobook and the physical copy to follow along until I understood every single word. I learned each word — carefully repeating them out loud, pointing my finger to each corresponding letter. Although I didn’t know most of the words on the paper, the two words “giving up” were not in my vocabulary. The modern art of letters soon turned into masterpieces and works of meaning. Either I finally learned to read because I was headstrong. Or because I was just that obsessed with Harry Potter. 

By the fourth Harry Potter book, I didn’t need an audiobook, which felt like sorcery in itself. And, I was beaming with pride. Finally, I could open a book, flip to the first page, and read on my own. Although the fourth book was 752 pages long, I wasn’t afraid. The journey to get here and to read independently was longer. Perhaps it was no coincidence that the fourth book was both my favorite in the series and the first book I fully read myself. 

Graced with the newfound independence of reading, I discovered the freedom of imagining and enchantment of living a thousand lives. Following my determination to read, reading determined my future — a future full of woven words, knitting a blanket of warmth around my soul. To read was not just to win. To read was the just start of my own story. 

Until I was seven, I could not read. But until I die, I will continue to read.