The reason behind this blog is not so much a declaration of my problems or of the fact that I'm not exactly thrilled with my current lot in life. More so it is an announcement that I'm not happy with who I think I'm starting to become. I've never been a huge go out and see the world type of person, although I've always wanted to explore more than I do. As of late I have noticed I've become even more shut in than ever, grasping harder to things that our comforts.
The instance that made this obviously aware to me happened just recently. I loaned a book to my friend, a series of 4 books actually. He had a lot on his plate, so I wasn't really surprised that after a long time passed he had yet read them. During his time with my books, another mutual friend asked to borrow the 4th book of the series as she had read the first 3 but didn't have a copy of the 4th. I agreed and noted the transfer of the one book from one friend to the other. The subsequent borrowing was asked at a Halloween party a week prior to Halloween, and I'm guessing the book switched hands shortly after that. I don't want to drag this explanation in such detail, but I feel it's necessary to understand as much of my psyche on the subject as possible.
As I said above, I've become more closed off lately and one of the things I have tried to occupy my time with is reading. I've never been a fast reader, but I've always been able to get through books pretty well when I focus on them. One thing I like about myself when it comes to my reading is although I'm probably slower than most, I tend to get fully engrossed in what I'm reading. Feeling the emotions of the characters, imagining the visuals in my head, letting my imagination take over while I'm reading. If you've ever been around me while I'm reading for pleasure, you will most likely frequently hear or see me react to what I'm reading. I consider this a gift, as I see, allowing me to enjoy reading even more.
So, I have been reading more lately than I have ever in my life. The easiest comparison to make would be to state the facts. I don't have an exact time frame to relay or exact numbers, but I would estimate that from birth to about 19 or 20, I hadn't read more than 30 books, including school. That number of course is not counting the number of children's books that we all read as we're learning the skill. I mean, I probably hadn't read more than 30 books from cognizant age forward, and this is a high estimate. I never took too many English classes in school and the one that involved the most books had me read about 5 or 6 books one semester. However, I've read more than 30 books this year alone. When I really focus on my reading I can pop out a book a day. Since I've really aimed at reading more, I've probably read close to 100 to 150 books, and grown my collection quite considerably.
Finally to bring these two points together, I decided to re-read the books I had lent my friend. When I asked him for the books back so I could absorb their story again, he informed me that he only had the 3 and that the 4th was with our mutual friend. I noted that and figured I had time seeing as how I've been trying to not focus all my time on personal reading. Unfortunately once I started reading this particular story, I couldn't stop. I went as far as to completely change my sleeping patterns to finish these books. I got through the first 3 books in a little more than 3 days. As I finishing the 2nd book, I asked my friend to see if he could retrieve the 4th book seeing as how I would need it soon. He told me he would, and I felt satisfied that I would have my book back shortly seeing as how they worked together.
Over the course of the next 3 days, I hammered my friend with another 4 text message inquiries and more back and forth responses asking about the book. He told me it was coming but for some odd reason that wasn't a gratifying response. I tend to think I have accrued a reasonable amount of patience over the past 26 years that I've been alive, but for some odd reason, I was really unhappy by the fact that I couldn't get my book. Finally after stewing and moping about, feeling like I was forced to read another book in the absence of my much needed 4th installment of the series, which I did read another book, I started to come to this realization that I initially started this blog about. I started to realize how sad it was that I was getting mad at my best friend over a situation that he had no control over. I was blaming him for the fact that I couldn't read that book, to the point where I considered never loaning out a book of mine again. Once I finally got the book back, and have now finished it, I really wonder where this path in life is taking me. I'm not going to lie, reading that book was immensely pleasing, and there is still a part of me that was glad I kept pestering him to get it back to me. But the very vast majority of me is starting to worry about myself.
I don't know, maybe this is all part of life. Learning to find a balance of sorts, I don't know. But I just wanted to get these feelings out of me.
poop. Now that that's out of the way...I think you should be angry. Books are sacred dammit! I hate to "blame the economy" but I think that is what is really going on in some aspects. We have no money to go out and do things, in the winter it gets worse because it's not warm enough to enjoy free frivolities of summer like catch or riding bikes, plus it's slim pickin's around here with job choices, so even though we want different jobs, we are stuck with what we got. So the sad thing is that you cannot control what happens to you, but you can control what you do about it. For the more friends time I say we get yummy polish food Saturday night with the old ladies and then take over Brian and CB's apartment-they finally hung up Kyle's dart board (woot!)
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