I think I skipped a page as I sat quietly in the corner of the library, flying through books, my nine-year-old self putting all of her effort that was not focused on reading toward adhering to the "Be Silent" rule. And I am convinced that this page I skipped was the worst oversight I never knew I had made.
It would have been nestled in between the Rules I Never Broke (I was never one for adventure novels) and the Thoughts I Locked Inside (I chose instead to live vicariously through the lives of the girls in teen and young adult books). My lack of spontaneity and ease of being intimidated into submission by authority granted me no opportunity to peruse the hidden crevasses of the library, peeking between my packed shelves of convention and anxiety. If only I had tumbled into a pile of the other kids' books, jumbling up my normal pattern, and one of them opened to the page I needed to read and my eyes would have absorbed the rich and exciting information that would have helped me so much in the years to come. Or perhaps all it would have taken was more careful reading of what already lay in my lap, a deeper and more thorough look at what was already in front of me, and I would have noticed that the page I was reading contained a breadth of potential knowledge that would serve me well in the future.
That page is probably still sitting there, neglected and yellowing, waiting for my nine-year-old self to lay a finger upon it. However, my nine-year-old self is ten years gone, and there is no going back as far as I can tell. I am left to wonder if I can ever regain what I lost through omission. Am I forever trapped between the lines?
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