Getting Back to Myself

 I finished a book Saturday. A whole book.

If you've known me for any length of time or if, by chance, you knew me when I started this blog ages ago, you know I used to be a voracious reader. Avid book worm. I dabbled in writing fiction, I loved the world of books so much. I discovered the wonder of reading at a young age and most of my elementary and high school friends (and anyone who crossed paths with me during college) rarely saw me without a book in my face. 

I read during classes, in between classes, at home, at work...yes I used to sneak a book out at work sometimes if the book was particularly riveting. I was a true book-a-haulic. I got teased a lot in high school, in a good natured way, for the number of books I'd read and re-read in any given day/week. I always won the "most books read in a year" award in high school, typically reading over a hundred books in a year. 

As an adult, I loved books and reading so much I joined a reading forum which made me a lot of like-minded internet friends and eventually lead me to starting this blog.

So why, you may ask, is my having finished a book Saturday such a big deal? 

Well, non-existent readers, because I haven't read a book in three years.

You read that right. The biggest book nerd of Mississippi hadn't read a book in three dag-gum years.

I'd blame it all on the depression and grief of losing my parents but quite honestly, depression started robbing me of a lot of my old joys YEARS ago before either of them ever got sick. I've been depressed a lot longer than I've ever admitted to anyone in my face-to face life and it took away my joy in music, reading, and writing and a lot of other things I can't even recall right this moment. 

Oh, I read a book here or there over the years before either of them died. Non-fiction, mostly. Memoirs to be precise. Somehow reading about other people's trauma and depression made me feel less loser-ish about my own, I suppose. I may have worked in a fiction book here or there but that became more and more rare over the years. Happily ever afters just didn't sit well with me any longer.

The desire to lose myself in a good piece of fiction was still there. I still sought out book recommendations...even going so far as to purchase books. But the energy and the will to put my heart into actually reading them just ebbed away until one day I just stopped trying. Stopped buying books. Stopped paying attention to book recs. I was sorely jealous and resentful of people who talked about what book they were reading or about their book and reading addictions. I scoffed painfully at memes and gifs about reading and readers and hid away in my painful little bubble of "I'm just not a reader anymore." 

But slowly over the past three years, as anti-depressants began to mend a bit of my mental health I've found pieces of myself slowing coming back together. First it was music. I got back on the Swifty wagon when she released Midnights which led me to discovering new artists whose music began pulling my out of the darkness and setting me back to rights.  Then I started dabbling in writing again, though that did not last long once my external hard drive died taking the manuscript I was working on with it. (No, I stupidly didn't have a back-up. I was rusty at writing, remember?) I've been too disheartened to pick it back up and start over but maybe someday. The itch is there, just not fully formed yet.

Last week, though, I had the overwhelming urge to get back into reading. So many of the vloggers and content creators I consume talk about books but recently, instead of being jealous or bitter, I found myself wistfully wishing I could relate to them. And suddenly I knew I just had to do it. I had to push past this block that's been set firmly in front of my old bookworm brain and just pick up the damn book and read.

And so that's what I did. 

I had purchased Colleen Hoover's Verity in the weeks before Daddy died thinking I would read it while we were in the hospital but I never could bring myself to pick it and actually put eyes to words. I carried it to one hospital to another and then to Sis1's house after Daddy died and then I set it on the table by my recliner and gave it side-eye. For three years, I would look at that book, think, "I've heard such great things about it and the movie's being made...I should read it." I managed to crack it open and read the first few chapters at some point but then set it back down and forgot about it. Until I didn't.

One day last week I resolved to myself that I would put down my dag-gum phone, pick up that book and READ.

It took a few tries to get it started. I am stupidly addicted to TikTok so I struggled a bit with scrolling instead of reading. But finally! Finally I picked it up and read and read and read and Saturday night I reached "The End" and it was like a floodgate had opened. 

I immediately went and dug out a book I had bought shortly after Mama died five years ago but had hidden when I realized the whole plot of the book was grieving a death and I was for sure not ready for that subject matter at that time. But Saturday night I suddenly had the urge to dig in to Kristan Higgins' "Pack Up the Moon" and I sat with it yesterday for quite a while and am halfway through it. I had forgotten how much I enjoyed Kristan's writing. She's been one of my favorite authors for forever and now I have a backlog of books to catch up on that she's released during my hiatus from reading.

I can't fully describe the relief I feel at having completed one book and starting another. I'm cautious because I'm scared my mental health will kill the excitement again. I'm not cured of depression. There's still so much of myself I need to work on. So much of this new iteration of my life that I need to settle into and learn to be okay with. Bad habits like TikTok that I need to work on breaking up with. 

But I'm hopeful. Hopeful that finding and reestablishing pieces of my old self will help me feel more comfortable in this new reality I'm learning to live in. Hopeful that I can find a bit of peace in books as I've found in music. Hopeful that this win will lead to another and another until I've formed a version of myself that merges my old self with my new self in a way that won't make me sad or anxious or bitter as I've been the past several years.

I finished a book, y'all!!