I HAVE always loved reading.

During my earliest years in elementary school, the only books I loved to study and browse were the ones with stories. I loved to read the stories about Filipino families, the picture-perfect family that ate together, prayed together (usually they would go to Antipolo on Sundays), went to the beach, and kept pets (Muning and/or Bantay). There would be Lolo, Lola, Nanay, Tatay, Kuya, Ate and Bunso. Tatay would come home from work just as Nanay had finished setting the table for merienda or for early dinner. The kids would study together, with the older kids always helping Bunso. They would always have time to play and do house chores. They would even grow fruits and vegetables in the backyard. And, they were always the most respectful, polite, kind and happy children.

I would always imagine myself as one of the kids in the stories. Not that my family is not a happy one; it?s just that my family, like any other, is not free of problems. Young as I was, I didn?t understand this reality. I couldn?t understand why we couldn?t be like the perfect families in my textbooks. Why were both my parents always out? I couldn?t understand why both my mom and dad had to work. I wanted my mom to prepare merienda for us, just like Nanay in the book. I wondered why I had to spend more time in my mom?s office playing or talking with the grown-ups instead of at home playing or studying with my brothers and sisters.

Every time I studied, or read such stories, I would pretend to be one of the children in the stories. I would talk and play with my imagined (imaginary) Ate and Kuya. I would ask them about things that bothered me, like why my feet didn?t touch the ground whenever I sat on chairs, but my parents? feet and sometimes even my brothers? would always touch the ground. That was the biggest mystery that bugged my very young, innocent mind like crazy. And it took a few years for me to solve that mystery.

I have always been very sensitive. Every time my parents fought or whenever my brothers wanted to do boys? stuff that I couldn?t join, I would retreat and take refuge in the company of my imagined, perfect family. They were my comforters. Whatever my real family couldn?t give or provide me, my imagined family gave and provided. I?d start reading and go on until I forgot what was happening and where I really was. And I?d be happy and contented.

That was what got me started in reading. The world of literature, later on, became my world. It became very easy for me to transport myself to different places and times. It became natural and automatic for me to seek silence in the company of my book friends whenever the real world became too noisy. My book friends became my favorite advisers and I learned to do a lot of things from them. Whenever I had problems or encountered things I couldn?t understand, I?d quickly consult the expertise of my book friends. I learned to appreciate the world I lived in through my book friends. I didn?t lose touch with reality. In fact, my books made me understand and accept reality better than people around me hoped.

Thinking about all this now makes me laugh in spite of myself. But it also gives me more knowledge about myself (people always say that in truth we don?t really know ourselves). I am thankful for that sensitivity I had then because somehow that made me a devotee of the written word. Those times when I ?disappeared? in the company of my imagined, perfect family were what made me the kind of reader that I am, a reader who gets transported to the different places and times, a reader who gets to befriend the characters and experience both good and bad things with them. And, all of this shaped me to be the very person that I am.

I became the book addict and resilient person that I am, all because of my ?other family?!

Diandra-Ditma Aguam Macarambon, 29, teaches English and Literature at the Mindanao State University-Main Campus in Marawi City.