There is one novel on my shelf with a cracked spine and three different colors of pencil in the margins. Each color is a different year, and each year I disagree with the last one.
Rereading is a mirror
The words do not change, but I do. A line that felt like a throwaway at twenty-five hits hard at thirty-five. The book becomes a ruler I hold up to my own life.
What I underline now
These days I mark sentences about patience and small kindnesses. Earlier it was all ambition. I am not sure which version of me was right, but I like having the record.