With the arrival of a New Year, I see many around me making resolutions and plans for how they are going to do things anew. Activities to stop doing, to start doing, or get back to doing. From the coworker who makes collards & black-eyed peas for new years to jumpstart his slow-food January, to the display of organizing bins on sale at the container store, to the bullet journal water trackers I see on BuJo blogs, it’s part of our culture to start big in January which surrounds us everywhere.
Since I was off on New Year’s eve, I went to my health club for a yoga class. I was drawn to one I don’t often get to enjoy because it’s in the middle of my workday. When I pulled in, the parking lot and the studio was packed. Oops. I unwittingly got caught the resolutions rush. While I don’t participate in exercise resolutions since I try to keep moving all year, it got me thinking. There is something I miss, which I should get back to. Books.
I’ve had an on-again-off again love affair with books that started when I was a child. My family moved from Chicagoland to the deep south when I was in 2nd grade, and that first winter, I caught every new local virus around. I was sick for a total of several weeks across the winter months. TV reception was spotty out where we lived, and I quickly became bored home, sick all day. One day, my mother went to the county library and brought home a stack of books, with “The Little House on the Prairie” on top of the pile because she had loved it as a child. So, in my boredom, I picked it up and started to read. I was transported to Laura’s world, far away from the sickness of my present.
Reading became my go-to escape and relaxation mechanism. I could fill time anywhere, any place, because I always had a book in my hand or my bag. Whether I needed to escape my home life, or wind down at night, I could loose myself in a book. It was the perfect information device , just ask Issac Asimov. Along with my reading habit, a collection of books I loved and might want to read again grew.
Some might say I had a bit of an addiction to books and reading. In High school, would rather read than go to the beach a couple of blocks from my house. In college, I almost failed a math class because I preferred to read books for my Canadian History course instead. When my son was born, my lunch break at work became sacred reading time because there was no chance to read at home. I would sneak away to read at the sandwich shop down the road. At least until the exhaustion of parenting my young child caught up with me. Then for a while during lunch I would fall asleep in my car, book my open in one hand, sandwich in the other.
Vacations required a stop at a local bookstore, because the two or three books I would bring on the trip were consumed within a few days. Some sailors have a girl in every port, I have a used bookstore. I didn’t bring home tchotchkes, I brought home books to add to my collection. I can recall trips simply by looking at my bookshelves where over time books piled up like cord wood.
Then I started to remember things from my childhood. Things I’d buried because they were too much to know. Overwhelmed with emotion and memories, I turned to my coping mechanism. I read the classic “Trauma and Recovery” by Judith Hernan, I read “I Can’t Get Over It” by Aphrodite Matsakis, and then a few more of her books. I started “The Courage to Heal” a workbook by Ellen Bass and Laura Davis. And then… Nothing. I couldn’t finish a book for two months. The next book took Three months. I’d gone from reading a book a week to only a handful in a year.
Of all the things my childhood trauma has taken from me, this one caused the most unexpected change. My primary coping mechanism of a lifetime was suddenly gone. I couldn’t focus on a story when I was interrupted in every page by an image or emotion which would send me spiraling. Reading at first felt futile, like pouring words into the void of my mind, never to coalesce and give comfort or distraction. Then I started to associate reading with having flashbacks. So over time, I stopped trying to read as much.
My coping mechanisms shifted. I wrote more often, even every day, trying to process what was coming forth. I moved a lot, spending time cycling and walking. I found an online support group. I spent time (too much) on social media. But I sorely missed being able to pick up a book and mentally depart for someplace else.
I’ve often wondered whether my perception of cause and effect is backward. Instead of the trauma memories taking away my ability to devour books, had instead my compulsive reading habit been a way to keep the memories and awareness at bay? Either way, I still miss losing myself in a book.
Over the intervening years, I sometimes find my way back to losing myself in a book. Progress in therapy will allow some settling inside, and I can read again for a while. Nina LaCour’s or John Green’s young adult novels still enrapture me. Sometimes I stumble into a great read which captivates me again for a while like Stephen King’s Bill Hodges trilogy. It never lasts though.
Lately, I’ve again been having a difficult time reading. The focus is gone, and the pull is but a wish in my heart as I set my glasses atop the kindle on the nightstand as I reach to turn off the light each night. Watching others try to live out their New Year’s resolutions, has spurred me to spend time reflecting about where I find myself, and how I might change.
As I’ve become unstuck from my year long freeze, my work in therapy has started to move again. When I’m not afraid for my own (and my loved one’s) existence, there is enough safety for other things to come to the surface. So I find myself again in the thick of remembering and feeling things from my childhood. Not in the flooding way of the early days, but memories are coming. Realizations are being made. My emotional stores are again being used as fast as I can fill them.
To cope, I find a plethora of distractions in hand. My attention is pulled by oh-so-many things. The constant news cycle, social media, my feedly list, even any random topic of curiosity becomes a rabbit hole. When myreserves are low, there is only so much capacity to work for distraction. The overwhelm of cancer treatment has added another layer of anxiety and fuzziness. Endless scrolling becomes my easiest distraction. But it’s not what I want.
I long to rekindle the love affair with books, to rebuild what had been my greatest coping mechanism. I find myself searching for a way to being books back into my live. I’ll start small.
Only fun stuff is at the top of my “to-read” list for now. I’m using some time on the train to/from my day job when I go to the office to read. I’m picking up a book instead of the remote at the end of a day, even if only for a few minutes. I’m reading a magazine or a bit of a story instead of checking the news. My new mantra is “if I’m not writing, I’m reading.”
It seems to be paying off a bit. I’m working through a book and have polished off a couple of magazines. Still it’s a chore, because it’s no longer my first instinct. This is work to reconnect with my long lost love, but it’s enjoyable work.
Every time I find myself getting lost again a story, I spend less time worrying about things I can’t control. So that means it’s work worth doing. I am going to have to rekindle this love affair a paragraph, a story at a time.