It is a truth universally acknowledged that moving is terrible. Recently(ish), I made it through a big move which, as such things are wont to do, turned out to be very enlightening.

The biggest lesson? Turns out, I have a lot of books.

I obviously already knew I had a lot of books. But there’s nothing like seeing box after box of books pile up when you have to move everything you own. Nothing like it in order to make you second guess your dream of having a Beauty and the Beast library.

Knowing myself, this momentary desire to purge books from my collection will safely die away after a while (jk – Mom, I promise I’m trying to get rid of books), but it has got me thinking about why books are worth owning. About what my personal library really means and represents to me.

My collection of books is a time machine. For me, my books represent the past as much as they do the future. Books that I chose to purchase and read say something about who I have been. Books that I own but haven’t read yet are like snippets of my future. Secrets that I just haven’t uncovered yet. Waiting to turn me into my future self.

My library is an extension of myself. It represents what I value, what I’m interested in, what brings me joy, what I have learned, and what I have spent my time and money on. When my books don’t have a place, it’s hard to feel like I have a place.

My books are home. It sounds silly, but it’s true. In the last twelve years or so, I have technically moved something like sixteen times (depending on what you count as a “move”). At the most conservative count, I’ve lived in something like eight or nine different homes/apartments in that time, even if you don’t count my mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I think it’s fair to say that I’ve moved around a lot in my adult life so far, and one thing I really learned is that, more than really anything else, nowhere feels like home until my books have a place to live. Until there’s a shelf set up where they can adorn the space and brighten otherwise blank walls, it’s not home. In several of the places I’ve lived, I couldn’t bring many books with me at all, for various reasons. Those are the places that never felt like home. Never. In some, I could bring a few more of my books. They felt a little more like home. This recent move is the first time in my life that I’ve had the opportunity to give all of my books a space to live. And even though I’ve been there such a short time, it already feels more like home than almost any other place I’ve lived. (The only exception being my family home where I grew up.) Whenever I move, one of my highest priorities is to get my books unpacked and on shelves because until that happens, I’m never really going to be home.

My books are my own private university. Especially now that libraries and bookstores are closed in so many places, I love that I can walk over to my shelves and shop my own shelves and read about so many topics and so many different people (real and fictional). Books are an incredible and unrivaled way to share knowledge over time and space, and there is something incredibly beautiful about that.

It actually reminds me of this quote/poem from Jen Campbell, which I love and agree 100% with. It refers specifically to bookshops but I think it fits for books themselves as well as personal libraries.

Bookshops are
time machines
spaceships
story-makers
secret-keepers
dragon-tamers
dream-catchers
fact-finders
& safe places.