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As of Friday, Borders liquidates its remaining 400 stores. The entire company will be completely shut down by September. I can't really look at this from any sort of business perspective, but from a personal standpoint, I see this as a tragedy.I've been going to Borders since I was in 3rd grade. It has always been a part of my life, and it is now becoming just a childhood memory. I went to the local borders frequently when I was in middle school to find books on my large collection of interests. This Borders was next to an ice cream store, and had a coffee shop on the top floor. My dad would leave us with a $10 dollar per child budget to buy a book and me and my sister would negotiate money for certain books. I rarely read any of the novels I bought, because they were always above my reading level. I often bought "how-to" books and Star Wars Encyclopedia. If you track the books I bought from Borders, you can see my changing interests. Borders was there for me from my obsession with Star Wars to Airplanes to History to Writing to Music to Film to Acting and back. I would spend hours searching for a reasonably priced book that had everything I wanted. After we bought our books, we would either get hot chocolate or ice cream depending on the season.
I hated and still hate, shopping for books online. I never really went to Borders for the books, I went their for the environment; for the ambiance. Going to the bookstore was something I would always look forward to, because of what it represented. Whether I enjoyed myself while there or not, I would always remember going to Borders as a happy memory. I never really thought that it would become a memory, but now it is. It now represents an end to my childhood; a new chapter in my life, so to speak. I still find myself wanting to go to Borders before realizing that my local store has been torn down. I always thought I would have that store as an adult, as a place of peace. Still, every story has an ending. For me, this is just the ending of another chapter in my life, and it's time for me to turn that final page.
borders being shut down is a disappointment for many. borders has always been there for me as a place of comfort. stepping into the fresh, crisp air of the bookstore was like that moment when you would loosen your tie and release tension from the day as your shoulders dropped. racing to find a particular book was like an adventure, bringing esteem of confidence and knowledge. easing your way around each shelf, looking for nothing, and nonetheless always finding something. no matter how many customers are in the store, you feel like it is just you, surrounded in wisdom, points of view, knowledge, fantasies & fairy tales, adventures, discoveries, and a whole world of pages filled with imagination not even tenable by your mind.
ReplyDeletei really like what you wrote - we might be turning our final pages, but if there is anything i learned from borders, it's that when you finish one story, you pick up another. :)