There are a few bad things about getting back into reading

by Lisa R. Howeler, posted in everyday musings

In the last several months I’ve cut way back on social media and found myself very lonely. The loneliness sometimes leads to depression, which isn’t good, but what is good is the fact I’m now back into reading and writing.

I find I now look forward to bedtime, not because I have time to mindlessly scroll through social media without feeling guilty that I should be spending time with my family instead, or not because my old age makes me want to sleep more. Now I look forward to bedtime because I can escape into a good book before sleep. In fact, thanks to the diminutive appearance of my Kindle I can escape into a good book almost anywhere.

I can not tell a lie – I feel a bit of a rush of rebellion when I stay up late with a book and I know it’s because of all the nights I spent with my head under the covers with a flashlight so Mom wouldn’t catch me up reading pass my bedtime. To this day I still feel the urge to pull the covers up over my head when reading a book after midnight. I realize I probably need therapy. My mom wasn’t against reading, in fact she read so much it’s probably why I have a love for it, but she was against me being very tired for school the next day because I had been up too late reading.

 

Rekindling (pun intended) my love for reading is almost entirely a good thing. Still, it does have its’ drawbacks.

First, there is the fact I often stay up too late when I’m caught up in a good book and pay for it the next day when grogginess causes me to forget to turn on the stove to cook dinner or that I put the dog out an hour ago. Much to my chagrin, I have to admit my mom was right about that needing sleep thing.

Then there is the fact reading, much like blogging and writing short stories, is yet another way for me to procrastinate cleaning the house, folding laundry, loading the dishwasher or feeding my children. Why are kids always so hungry anyhow?

Another drawback to returning to the love of reading is the reminder of how stupid I really am because I have to keep highlighting words in the Kindle dictionary to learn the meaning of them. Truthfully, I could skip the word and keep going but since that nifty dictionary feature is already built into the Kindle it seems a shame to let it go to waste the same way I apparently let my brain go to waste.

Then there is the drawback to being able to look up words with the tap and slide of a finger: realizing you’re not only stupid for not knowing words but also because you keep trying to tap and highlight words when you are reading an actual, hard copy of a book.

Yet another drawback is when a book either is too exciting or jumps the shark and leaves me laying there in the dark all pissed off, tossing and turning, fuming, writing letters of disgust in my head to the writer. I was recently in the midst of a very well written Christian fiction book when it went off the rails into fantasy territory and I was left all theologically pissed off because miracles don’t happen like that in real life. So there I laid lost in deep thoughts about why we don’t see miracles today, instead of accepting that it’s JUST A BOOK! Hello! I decided then I needed to read less theological books before bed, instead focusing on books like The Cat Who… books or The Mitford series.

Despite the disadvantages to becoming a voracious reader again, I’m glad to have a way to escape from both the mundane boredom of my own life and the insanely, way too exciting events of the world around me. Currently, I’m switching between a Cat Who book by Lillian Jackson Braum ( a series of books about a newspaper reporter and his crime-solving Siamese cats) and the fifth book of the Mitford series by Jan Karon.

How about you? In the midst of any books you are using to avoid the responsibilities of life?
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To read more from some readers who read more and write more about what they read, you can click over to Readerbuzz’s Sunday Salon on her blog, or on Facebook.

Published by Lisa R. Howeler

Welcome to my blog! I am a wife and mom from Pennsylvania who also happens to write. I have been writing for 25 years, fourteen of those for smalltown newspapers in rural Pennsylvania and upstate New York. When I'm not writing about love, faith, and family life in a small town, I'm taking photographs and homeschooling my two children and also writing and publishing fiction. I blog a little bit about a lot of things on my blog Boondock Ramblings at www.lisahoweler.com.

21 thoughts on “There are a few bad things about getting back into reading”

  1. This weekend we–my partner and I–finally shoveled the house out after both being sidelined with long colds, so I feel guilt-free about reading books in the afternoon. The downside of it is that I’m not getting anything written.

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  2. Housework is always the least of my priorities. I enjoy the social aspect of blogging, I spend probably a few hours a week commenting on blogs, in fact I have a self imposed rule that I comment on or at at least ‘like’ 5 blog posts/twitter or Facebook comments a day. Given I’m a SAHM, I need the connection to stay sane.
    Right now I’m going to start dinner for the kids, but I’ll have a Book propped open in front of me while I do 🙂

    Have a great reading week

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    1. Being a SAHM as well, I can totally relate to this. I also read while making dinner at times. I hide in the kitchen and listen to podcasts or read while cooking. “What’s that honey? No. I can’t come in there right now! If I leave the stove the chicken might burn.” 😉

      I’m starting to comment on blogs more because I dropped Facebook (draaammaa!!) and my friends appear to have dropped me in the process. In fact I don’t have friends anymore … I’m never asked to go anywhere or do anything so my only social life is online, sadly. Maybe someday that will change but it’s where I am in this season.

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  3. I’m happy you are able to get back into reading. I remember those years when I had young children and I never had any time to myself. I missed reading so much at that time. I remember wishing that employers had a mandatory reading period during the work day…yes, I was a dreamer.

    You have brought up lots of the difficulties of getting back into reading. Reading seems to actually breed the desire for more reading, in some sort of odd way.

    Now that I’m retired, I say that reading and blogging IS my work. That seems to get me out of the sorts of work that I really don’t want to do.

    I’m so glad you joined in for Sunday Salon!

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    1. I actually shied away from it because I always feel my books aren’t as deep as some, but my brother told me I should join, so I jumped in. Next time I’ll actually write on Sundy instead. 🙂

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  4. Pingback: Weekly Round Up and Favorite blog posts – Boondock Ramblings

  7. Oh my goodness yes!! I tell myself I deserve a break where I can just lay down and read. The problem is my breaks get longer every day and the dirty dishes roll over until the next day. 😀

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  8. I’d really like to have my brain examined. No seriously!!! I love to read. Love, love, love it!!!! But I can’t say I have ever been “lost” in a book. I find that very sad. I can’t even imagine what it’s like to be so immersed in a book that you forget other responsibilities. I want to have that experience!!!

    I have a friend that can get so “lost” in a book that she thinks about it for days afterwards and can’t start another book right away. That has never happened to me. I have never had to sit and contemplate after finishing a book.

    I close a book and don’t remember characters, plots, endings…

    But yet I love to read. I don’t get it. I’m the same way with watching movies. Don’t get lost in them, don’t remember plots and characters.

    As for Kindle, I also look up every word that I don’t know. Very cool feature. The only problem for me is, it often takes me down rabbit holes and away from the book. For example, I was reading a book that took place in the 1930s and I looked up Milquetoast and that took me off into the world of 1930s newspaper cartoon characters. Then I looked up another word and was off looking at 1930’s coats.

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    1. I go down rabbit holes too! All the time with definitions and words. Ha! I can totally relate. I don’t know if I really get so lost I forget everything, but I get pretty into it, and sometimes that can be a good thing because it helps me not dwell on other things I’m worried or down about. It can be a good and a bad thing, is what I’m saying. 🙂

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  9. I am not currently reading anything….for the simple fact that I too get completely lost in a book (even the crappy ones!) and will “forget” my other responsibilities! Sigh…someday I will find balance….maybe 😉 Or I will just wait until the children are older and can take care of themselves, lol. God Bless!

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  11. I love to get lost in books, almost any kind and subject. I’m currently reading James Patterson. I think you would like the Joshua series by Joseph Grizone. It’s fiction but great commentary of what Jesus intended for us and what we have now in modern day religion. I love your writing – you put your thoughts down so well and I can relate to so much of it.

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