On one of my last nights of summer, I went for a motorcycle
ride with my neighbor. When we got back to his house, his mom and dad, Judy and
Charlie, were prepping their motorcylces for a Sturgis-bound journey. They
invited us in and conversation commenced.
When I started sharing my (at that time) ensuing adventure,
Judy said, “Natalie, you’re not nerdy enough to be a librarian.” I immediately
refuted her, promising that I was actually probably far nerdier than the
standard librarian.
When I was getting ready for work today (a 3 hour work day
without students), I tied my hair back in the modern-day librarian’s bun, put
on an oversized sweater and jeans, and completed the look with my –too large
for my face- glasses. The cracks in my skin are filled with dust from aged
books and my fingertips are glossed by the brittle paper those books contain.
I am a librarian. A hybrid librarian that occasionally
substitutes, teaches a High School class on Media, and corrals little ones by
convincing them that all books are truly mesmerizing.
I’ve always been
confidently convinced that the degree of nerdiness I possess far surpasses the
threshold set by an imaginary board of librarians. Until recently, though, I
felt nearly purposeless at this school. When school started, we were missing
teachers and I felt if I volunteered to be one of those teachers, I would be
more valuable. I embodied insecurity.
Today, though, confident in my full physical conversion to a
librarian, I also feel pretty good about my purpose in the school.
I’m a nerdy librarian. I’ve always been a bit (or far more
than a bit) of a nerd, I love that my nerdiness now has purpose.
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