Wednesday, June 8, 2011

How Borders helped mend my broken heart!

In honour of the closing down of all Borders Australia stores I have decided to share a story.

What would you do, if in your late 20s, and supposedly happily married, your husband tells you that he “doesn’t want to be married to you anymore.” For me, my only place to turn to was my parent’s home – a frightening prospect for anyone who has had their life on track for the past few years!

This is the story of my struggle to rebuild my life after I found out that the gloriously perfect world I was living in, wasn't that perfect.

With the help of my wonderful parents and friends I gradually get back into the world and back to work, at a very special place...Borders Brisbane.

Borders was a three level bookstore in Brisbane, with every book you could possible imagine. To any booklover, it truely was a dream!

At the time of this tale I was the Assistant Manager - and had worked for Borders for several years! I was actually one of the staff members who set up the store before it opened. Now, this is not just a story of love gone wrong but it is a story about the wonderful friends and co-workers at Borders that helped me come to terms with the sudden change in my life. Of course throw into this mix some extremely crazy customers, a huge Harry Potter release party, new staff that needed to be trained the fine art of bookselling, the dramas of trying to shelve 600 Dan Brown books, a passionate group of women who became members of my bookclub, oh and of course a new heart throb to pull at my heartstrings!

Names in this tale have been changed - but my dear Borders friends played an important part in helping me and I want to share their fabulous characters too. 

I hope you enjoy this read over the coming months, maybe year - depending on how often I can pump it out. 

Borders ment so much to me and I feel this is my way of preserving and sharing how special it was. I know it certainly held the heart of a lot of other staff members and of course thousands of customers over the years.