FC

The perfect gift

On my birthday last year, I'm pretty sure nobody had any idea what to get me. I know this because I got the weirdest gifts this year. They were thoughtful of course, and I am very lucky to have people that go out and buy things for me on this special day, but you could tell, these friends of mine struggled to figure out what to get me.

The thing is, the things I do want, they are so much simpler than the things I actually got. I never sat down to think what I would love to get on my birthday. So when I got these gifts and I looked at them and thought, I don't really know what to do with these things, I thought hard abuot what would have been nice, since I figured I could treat myself to something on this mostly arbitrary day.

I thought about computer stuff, maybe some video games, clothes, and some other fun things, but it didn't take long for me to realize what was the perfect gift for me. Books. I have a huge list of books I want to read. I thought about how good it feels whenever I get a new book, that fresh book smell. I mean, lately I've only been getting books for my Kindle app, but besides the smell thing, the feeling of starting fresh on a new book feels the same.

And that is a relief. That when I sit down and think about it, that thing I love, looking at it from the outside, is such a great thing to love. How I would love to live somewhere that's just surrounded by books. How I hope my family will grow up with books, in the face of an age where so much of our reading comes from a devices, if we even read at all.

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