Reading is Fundamental

I used to be a reader.  I used to have several books going on at once.  I used to scoff at people who, under the Favorite Books section of their Facebook profile put something to the effect of "I don't like to read."  I used to be called a bookworm.

I think I took a break from heavy reading late in high school.  Life picked up.  I was busy, I had a lot of school work, and in my downtime I started preferring hanging out with friends to reading.  College came and the problem only got worse.  Who can enjoy reading for fun when you have pages and pages of an Ergonomics textbook waiting on you?

After college, I should have picked it back up, but for some reason I didn't.  I think it was probably because Ryan was gone and the house was too quiet and still while I read.  I preferred the noise and mindlessness of the TV.  But Ryan came home, and the reading still didn't start back up.  Oh sure, I've devoured a few Harry Potter books.  I spent a solid four days hammering out the Twilight series (and then reread them each twice).  I read all of the Sookie Stackhouse books last summer at the urging of my neighbor, and then read Hunger Games because the rest of my family was reading them.  But it still hasn't stuck.  I'm not consistently reading.

I think part of the problem is that I'm just too good at reading.  I'm a very fast reader, and I tend to get so caught up in books that they completely consume me.  I'll stay up all night and not even think about it if I'm into a good book.  I'm really good at it.  But recently I decided that I would give reading another try.  I have several friends who read quite a bit, and my mom is an avid reader as well.  And I have a little personal, internal goal of "getting back to me" - the me I used to be before life got complicated, work got busy, motherhood and wifehood kicked in, and I had more grown-up responsibility than I knew what to do with.  Hence the riding, the running, and now the reading.

I visited the library with Alli last week.  We picked up some new chapter books for her, including a fun series called the Pony Pals.  We're reading a chapter or two a night together, and it's been really great to share it.  While we were there, I picked up some books for myself that I've heard people mention over the past several years but that I've never taken the time to read.  I got The Shack, The Help, Eat Pray Love, and then a little chick lit book called A Desirable Residence.  It's taken me about a week, but I'm almost done with The Shack.  It's a 250 page book, and I read the first 150 pages in the first night.  I had to slow myself down so that I didn't tear through it and so that I got enough sleep each night.  You see, I'm just that good.