The Shop Around The Corner

In 1998 we fell in love with Kathleen Kelly (Meg Ryan) as the endearing shop owner in You've Got Mail.  People wanted to dress like her and hairstylists everywhere were getting requests for that same cute cut that Meg so sweetly wears.  For me, it wasn't just Meg's hair or clothes I fell in love with.  It was The Shop Around The Corner.  I used to daydream about owning a shop just like the enchanting one in the movie.  As I got older my hopes and dreams for my future changed.  When Tag and I bought our house, I soon discovered a bookstore just a hop, skip, and a jump from our doorstep.  Although, it wasn't individually owned (it is a chain), there has always been a very small, quaint feel to it.  Yes, it was a Borders.  While most might view Borders as the big, bad Fox Books, it became my own little shop around the corner.  I have spent endless hours thumbing the pages of new books, sitting with my kids on the big, comfy armchairs that practically swallow them up, sipping hot chocolate on a snowy day, reading, laughing, and thumbing through pages a little more.  We've visited the bookstore on a regular basis since we moved here 3 years ago.  My kids jump for joy when I ask them to put their shoes on so we can go the bookstore.  Even though we don't always buy anything, we enjoy being surrounded by walls and walls of books.  You can almost smell the possibilities, the fantasies, the imagination in a bookstore.  It isn't new news that Borders bookstores are going out of business.  I've had a broken heart about it for some time now.  On one of my last visits there, I stood at the cash register almost in tears with the woman who used to read stories to my children and knows them by name.  It reminded me of a scene in the movie when Kathleen hands a customer a box of tissues as they share a sad moment over the closing of The Shop Around The Corner.  I'm not ready to accept Barnes and Noble as our neighborhood bookstore.  It's huge.  It's cold.  I get lost.  The employees there have never seen my children before and certainly don't know their names (cue Cheers theme song).  We are so sad to see our bookstore leaving.  At times I have pictured myself chained to the front doors in protest.  Yeah, I realize that sounds a little crazy.  In all seriousness though, we are going to miss our favorite hang out!