The Reading Scare

 I am always reading something. Always. (Yes, yes, I know that using absolutes such as never and always are very frowned upon, but in this instance, it is the honest-to-goodness truth.) 

I love reading and owning books so much that we have converted our formal dining room into a library of sorts (which of course is organized by category/topic, hardcover/softcover, and then by size - welcome to the world of my ADHD brain). I keep this library of books (that I buy almost exclusively used) because I read these books more than once. I don't keep books that I won't read more than once. It seems pointless to me to do that. (And yes, I completely get that some people think it is useless to own a book instead of just borrowing them from the library - to whom I say, to each his own.)

But...last year (or maybe it was even the end of 2024?) I started noticing it was taking me longer to get through books. Instead of getting through 3-5 books a month, I was reading one book a month, and sometimes not even that. I was finding that instead of reading chapters and chapters each night, I was reading several pages and then putting the book down not to be picked up until the next evening before bedtime. It was completely discouraging me. I tried to reason with myself for months that maybe the content I was reading was just too much for my brain at the end of the day. Afterall, I tend(ed) to mostly read non-fiction books about hard topics (like the Black experience, women's rights in the Middle East, 1800's history, Native American history, the Hispanic experience along the border, drug cartels...ya know, light easy reads before laying my head down to rest for the day). I didn't think that this could be the case though because I have been reading topics like this for years and never had a problem getting through 30-50 books a year. 

I started to wonder if maybe my phone usage had anything to do with it (f*ing Instagram). So, I deleted my sole social media kryptonite, the Instagrams. I could spend hours on Instagram - days even - if my guilt-addled brain would let me. I freaking love Instagram. Love it. I love following people that inspire me. I love following people that astound me. I love following people that disgust me. I love Instagram so much that I am surprised that some of these accounts I follow don't invite me over to celebrate Christmas Day with them because I know them so well. I mean I see all of their content, engage in a post or two here and there that really speaks to me. I know all about their families, their habits, their likes and dislikes and since everything they post online is true and their actual lives, and all of these people are genuine (insert sarcasm here) and not presenting their accounts like they do to solely make money either indirectly or directly off of me, then doesn't that mean we are BFF's in this day and age? And don't BFF's sometimes celebrate holidays together? Especially if their families are spread out all over this country of ours?

 Yeah, so maybe I am a bit obsessed with Instagram. Which explains why the past few months I have deleted my account more than once, only to wait out the 30 days before the account "actually" gets deleted (because, ya know, Meta knows how addicting its social media conglomerate is, especially for personalities like mine, and they give you a 30 day "grace period" after you've requested to delete your account before they actually do so just in case you don't actually mean it) and then after the 30 day period has expired (because f*@k you, Mark Z. I'm not gonna let you tell me that I am too weak minded to stay off Instagram for less than 30 days) signed back up again. And thus, the detrimental cycle begins again for me. Look, I have tried 500 million different ways for Instagram not to be addictive for me. I feel like I could write a goddamn book about the topic, but at the end of the day, the truth is, it is addictive for me (and the truth is also that it is set up this way on purpose for a variety of reasons I am not going to get into today, or maybe ever) and addictions, no matter what kind, are never good for a person.

I digress. 

All of this is to say, that I think that my phone, and more specifically, my usage (and abuse) of it has completely altered parts of my life in ways that feel utterly unauthentic to me. I do not like this one bit. I do not like this because my phone makes me feel like a ghost of myself. I am here, but I don't necessarily feel alive. Which is completely stupid because isn't the point of living to be alive while we have this one-shot opportunity? (Cue Eminem.)

So, sometime in April (?), I broke up with Instagram. I had a relapse in May (after the 30 days, of course) but rebroke up with it shortly thereafter. I do miss it. I miss seeing my kids' stuff on it, and if I am being completely honest, I miss the people that I used to follow that I have no idea who they are other than I liked their content, but you know what I didn't miss? Only reading one book because...

I read four books in May. 

And it felt like a homecoming of sorts. In fact, I was shocked by the visceral reaction my being had when I realized that I was indeed back. I've missed reading. Like really reading and immersing myself in book after book. (Another shocker...my ADHD brain tends to like it best when I read several books on any one given topic, so I am inclined to really dive deep in my topics before moving on, and then often find myself coming back to them again after I have immersed myself in said other topic.)

 (If you are curious, I just got off of an 11-book historical fiction marathon - that took me f-o-r-e-v-e-r to get through. I've never done historical fiction before, but my grandmother likes it, and so i started to read her hand-me-down books and got caught up in the topic of Henry the VIII and the Tudor family. In June, I began reading memoirs, and have quite a stack to get through, but might end up splitting them up and switching topics at some point before finishing them up.) 

I feel like I (fingers crossed) may be getting back to my old self in terms of my love for reading and the quantity of books I go through. Reading books (real ones, not Kindle or audiobooks - not knocking those who use those mediums for their stories - I personally just need pages and a spine in order to read) is a part of my lifeblood. I need books in order to survive. They are just as important to my authentic self as oxygen is to my body. 

 I was scared there for a hot second that I would never devour books again.  I am so glad that is not the case.  I mean being away from any semblance of my normal known reading pattern for over 18 months was unnerving to me. 

Now if only I could only break up with my whole phone, I wonder what else in my life I could change, rediscover, come back to, relearn about myself...I think I'm gonna have to look into getting a flip phone with google maps. (Hopefully, those exist.) Because if getting off of Instagram can have this kind of a change in my life, imagine what stepping away from the whole plugged in rig-a-ma-role will do? To be continued...