Books Were My Escape. Then They Became Something More.

I've been trying to find the words for what this weekend meant to me. Not because nothing happened. But because so much did.

A year ago, I don't think I could have imagined myself here.

In 2025, I read 221 books. Whenever I tell people that, they usually respond with some version of, "How did you read so many?"

The truth is, I wasn't trying to hit a reading goal.

I was grieving.

For six months, I was in and out of hospitals with my grandma and my mom. The days felt long. The nights felt longer. Some days felt like I was carrying more than I had the capacity to hold.

And when life felt especially heavy, I read.

At first, books were simply an escape. A place to rest my mind. A place where hospital rooms didn't exist. A place where I could step into someone else's story when my own felt too painful to sit with.

I don't think I realized it then, but I was looking for relief. Maybe even a little hope.

And somewhere along the way, the books started giving me exactly that. What began as an escape slowly became a lifeline.

Especially the books written by Black women.

Those stories met me in a way I didn't know I needed. I found Black women being loved. Black women being chosen. Black women being soft. Black women being joyful. Black women being allowed to exist as whole people. Not just surviving. Not just overcoming. Just living. Just loving. Just being.

And after a while, I started to feel something shift inside me. Maybe hope. Maybe possibility.

Maybe the reminder that joy still existed, even when grief was taking up so much space.

Then this weekend happened. I attended Indie Love: Margins & Melodies.

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And while I expected books, what I didn't expect was community.

The women I met this weekend were such a gift. It's funny how strangers can become familiar so quickly. One minute you're introducing yourself. The next, you're sitting at a bar laughing until you cry. Sharing stories. Talking about characters like they're real people.

Creating inside jokes that make no sense to anyone outside the group.

The kind of moments that seem ordinary while they're happening but somehow become the memories you carry home with you. For someone who spent so much of last year feeling isolated by grief, that connection felt sacred.

And then there was the moment I met one of my favorite authors, C. Monet. I've replayed it in my mind more times than I can count. I walked up prepared to introduce myself. Instead, she already knew who I was. Not only did I know her. She knew me.

I don't know if I can fully explain what that felt like. Because long before she knew my name, I knew her words. Her stories had traveled with me through some incredibly difficult days. They sat beside me in waiting rooms. Hospital rooms. Quiet evenings when my thoughts felt too loud. And somehow, standing there, it felt like two worlds meeting.

The reader.

The writer.

The woman who needed the stories.

And the woman who wrote them.

I've been thinking about that a lot since coming home.

How books were once the place I ran to when life felt unbearable. And now they're the reason I've found community.

The reason I've met incredible women. The reason I've laughed until my stomach hurt. The reason I've created memories I know I'll carry for a long time.

I don't think this weekend was really about books.

At least not entirely.

I think it was about what books made possible.

Connection.

Friendship.

Representation.

Joy.

A reminder that healing doesn't always arrive in obvious ways. Sometimes it arrives disguised as a story. Sometimes it arrives through a conversation with a stranger. Sometimes it arrives while you're sitting at a bar laughing harder than you have in months.

And sometimes it arrives when you realize that the thing that once helped you escape your life is now helping you return to it.

I'm grateful for all of it.

The stories.

The authors.

The friendships.

The laughter.

And the unexpected ways we find ourselves again.