My first passion was reading. I did all the things keen readers do, though “keen” would not even begin to describe my addiction. Visits to the library became a weekly ritual. I grew hard muscles in my small arms from the heavy bags of books I carried home with me. I read when I wasn’t allowed to; late-night reading earned me more than one scolding and my teachers complained that I kept my nose to my books instead of paying attention. I read myself into deep headaches, completely blocking out the world around me before lifting myself to do something trivial like eat. I outgrew my supposed reading level and was moved to an advanced reading group at school before I outgrew that as well. None of my classmates could believe me when I announced that I had finished reading the Harry Potter series after starting it just two or three weeks earlier. The smartest girl in class was still on the fourth book after laboring through the series for two months which, according to grade-schooler logic, made me the new smartest girl.
I was officially a child prodigy. The kind of child prodigy that excels at one thing more that most people do at a young age but isn’t encouraged enough or given the opportunities or just lacks the verve necessary to carry that genius into adulthood. The older I got, the less impressed people were by my reading compulsion. The class prodigy label was slipping as I began to stray into teacher’s pet and know-it-all territory. I was no longer special. Not only that, but I was insignificantly average. In a desperate attempt to be praised and included, I slowly turned my eyes to illustration. It wasn’t easy to stray away from my books. In fact, I might have read more than ever during the transition period, though most of what I consumed became about painting or drawing. Being artistic or creative, in any form, is a universally likable trait and is apparently more impressive than being well-read. Any artist can tell you that hearing “I can’t even draw a stick figure” is an inevitable and endlessly repetitive phrase thrown around by the ungifted, unartistic peasants that crowd the human population. Not one single person thought I would pursue anything but illustration.
As it turns out, most things that are born with the intention of serving others stay headed down that route. When the time came for college applications, I very boldly applied to one art school. There was no back up plan for me, which I would come to sorely regret. The summer before I was due to start, I panicked. I had been accepted with a full scholarship and had really enjoyed the tours and orientations. One hot summer day, I opened my bedroom window to take a break from the stale air conditioning. Suddenly, sitting there with my chin on the sill, I felt the weight of my future float down and settle on my shoulders like a leaf drifts off a dry, red tree in autumn. I felt it blanket me and grow exponentially heavier. I was suffocating very quickly. To make a long story short, I do not have what it takes to be an artist and lack the wealthy background to be an artist regardless of the former fact. I had planned to study art at university for almost a decade, and that plan crashed before I could understand that it was crumbling. It was the only plan I made, which led me directly to a nervous breakdown. I begged my mother to let me take a gap year (she refused). I switched my major three times before school started and ended up suffering through a semester of film, which taught me many lessons and the importance of being around your own people. Whatever “my own people” may be, they are undoubtedly not film students.
The decision to switch to an English major was made purely by the fact that I had recently become reinterested in reading, this time with a focus on Palestinian literature. It was easy to begin reading again when the stories I read were sincerely important to me. I discovered that I enjoyed and had some talent in writing in a required course. In another course, I discovered that I enjoyed editing even more. It was almost like déjà vu, the way my Cinderella foot fell perfectly into the glass slipper of editing like it belonged to me. I’m more than grateful to have this opportunity as an Editorial Intern at Sundress Publications. Reading has created the parts of me that I love most, and I’m honored to be a part of uplifting more stories that shape people into their own slippers.
Hedaya Hasan is a Palestinian writer and designer based in Chicago.