Sometimes I go through stages of depression. There are high points, but then there are those moments that also have to come with it. Sometimes I go through years of not having my pages combed through or even the opening of my cover. “You don’t know what you got till its gone” I believe that is the line of my existence. I actually just heard that playing on speakers in the room that I was forgotten in and I pretty much think that it sums up my life. Or at least I hope it does to others. But not all of that part about some sort of taxi or a paved parking lot.
My earliest memory is of me surrounded by my siblings. They all looked exactly like me and we were all lined up on a clean shelf. I don’t quite remember how I left them but one day I was on my own. My best years were about 10 years after that. I used to just go from one home to another before then but I didn’t have the tears and crinkles that I have today.
One of my owners brought me to Paris while on her journeys through Europe. But being so important to her she left me in a coffee shop on the Champs-Élysées. I sat there for hours listening to some bad cheesy French ballads. I started to worry that I would be left there forever. But then, a man with a rather large backpack and his simple black coffee sat down at the table. He picked me up examined both of my covers, and started to read. I am thankful for this man because he read me rather quickly and then introduced me to an amazing thing that I was a part of for years. He dropped me off at a moving library. It was set on this sort of truck that traveled all around Europe and people could only have me for a couple of days. I felt so special. I was read over and over again. And one thing I loved most was the people that I met. There were some that would smile when they picked me up, making me happy enough that I wished I could smile back. There were others who would take me home having the intention to read me, but I would end up left alone on a bedside table. But it was okay because a few days later I would be home, on the truck, headed for a new adventure. I saw all the sites and met tons of people. I guess every book has their prime years. Those were mine. However some fool forgot to return me and I wound back up in the states on a dusty old bookshelf. Now I am just a title on display. But I never will forget my little adventure especially with the stamp on the inside of my cover claiming me as property of the that little truck that I met in Paris.