Once a Reader...

I know we aren't even halfway through this year, but I'm going to go ahead and claim 2018 as 'The Year I Re-Discovered Reading". I've already written about the reading challenge I'm doing this year, and how a big goal of mine for this year has been to read more and to read better quality books. It's honestly going a million times better than I had ever hoped. I set the goal hoping it would help me make my limited downtime more purposeful and to set a good example for my kids (especially Sam as his reading is becoming more and more fluent). What I didn't expect when setting this goal for myself, was that I was going to rediscover a part of me that I had lost, an unfortunate casualty of motherhood. I discovered the part of me that had always identified as a "reader".

Books have always been just as much a part of my life as family members. All of my memories include books in some way. My earliest memory, watching my brother Billy's birth when I was 4 years old, includes the memory of sitting on a worn birth center couch being read to while my mom was in labor. Without any effort, I can hear my dad's voice changing for each character as he read Berenstein Bear books to us in one of the boys' beds before we went to sleep, my mom's voice reading Harry Potter to us in their bed.

I remember the absolute thrill I felt when I finished reading my first chapter book all on my own (Little House on the Prairie). I remember book reports in school, before we started homeschooling. One year we gave oral presentations of a book we chose ourselves and got to bring in a snack to go with it. I read Listen to the Nightingale and brought iced tea and tea sandwiches. One of my classmates (I don't remember who) read The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe and brought in Turkish Delight.

When I was 13, my mom and I flew out to San Fransisco to visit my aunt, uncle, and brand new baby cousin. My biggest memory of my first plane ride was that I was reading Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire which I had purchased with my own babysitting money when it was released at a big midnight party shortly before leaving for our trip. I remember finishing it on the plane ride home and gasping so loud when I read about Lord Voldemort returning that my mom jumped and asked me if I was ok. I told her I needed her to hurry up and read the book so that we could talk about it.

When we started going to the beach in Lewes every summer, my favorite part was re-reading The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (a tradition) and then diving into a huge stack of library books. "Go to the library" always topped my mom's to do list when getting ready to leave for vacation.

One Christmas Eve I decided to stay up almost the whole night and read most of Little Women. I was a little bleary eyed the next morning, but it was worth it. I had just really wanted to spend Christmas with the March sisters.

My first summer ballet intensive (Washington, DC 2003) was so memorable in so many ways, but a big one was that Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was released right before I went away and it was on the top of the big pile of books I had packed. Several other dancers were reading it and a friend and I made sure to read it around the same pace, meaning we both learned of Sirius Black's fate on the same day and could comfort each other. 2 years later, at a summer intensive in Carlisle, PA I was reading the just released Half Blood Prince and finished the day before a friend, which meant I needed no explanation when she came bursting into my room sobbing with the book in her hand.

I remember in high school, the Language Arts curriculum my mom had me using introduced me to Emily Dickinson's poetry and from there I went through a phase of reading a lot of YA books written in verse. Some of better quality than others. One of my high school years I read Jane Austen's Emma and it made it's way onto my favorite books of all time list. I remember sitting in my loft bed (where I ended up doing most of my schoolwork a lot of days) actually eager to do my Language Arts because answering the questions felt like talking to somebody about the book I had loved, and who doesn't love discussing a book you really enjoyed?!

When I graduated high school and moved to Annapolis to dance, I had a part time job in a coffee shop/book store and it took incredible amounts of willpower not to blow my entire paycheck on books. As it was, I often went home with a few.

During a dark period in my early 20s, when a boyfriend had broken my heart, I hurried home from dancing and teaching every evening to read for hours. I read really sad books that helped me escape my own feelings. It felt oddly nice to cry for other people instead of myself for a change. (Said boyfriend is now my husband, so this memory has a happy ending!)

When James and I first got married, our combined libraries made up most of our moving boxes. In our tiny apartment, and with our meager budget, we made displaying every single book on a bookshelf a priority. An entire wall of our living room in that apartment (and the one we moved to a year and a half later) was filled with books.

The first summer we were married, I was often alone, since James spent most of that summer in the field. Once I got over my initial terror over driving on base, I went weekly to the library, and spent my days sitting by the pool, devouring everything by Emily Giffin and big stacks of other novels.

Taking the train home to PA to get ready for our 2nd wedding, a week ahead of James, I plowed through most of The Biography of Henry VIII, one of the longest books I'd ever read (and one of my favorites).

When I found out I was pregnant with Sam, I called my mom and when she asked what I was up to that day, I said, "Oh, just on my way to Barnes and Noble to buy some pregnancy books." by way of sharing the news. Immediately beginning to read every pregnancy book I could get my hands on was my very first instinct when I saw the positive test.

But then came babies. After Sam was born, I struggled to find time to read. There seemed to be so much else to do and we were having too much trouble figuring out the nursing thing for me to be able to read and nurse at the same time. As he got older, I seemed to have more time, but that quickly reading had ceased to be a habit and books were no longer my constant companions. Through the next few years of motherhood, I still read, and certain memories are still tied with books (When we moved to our house on base, while I was pregnant with Kate, I remember reading The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society on a camp chair in our mostly empty house, waiting for the moving truck to arrive), but I wasn't reading nearly as much as I always had before and long stretches of time would go by where I didn't finish a single book.

I honestly didn't notice it for a while. There were just so many other things going on in my life. I'd still mention reading any time I was asked what my hobbies were. I still went to the library a lot, mostly to check out children's books, but only ever checked out 1 or 2 for myself. I read daily to my kids, we still had big bookshelves in our living room. Eventually though, I started to realize how little I was actually reading. And when I realized that, I realized something else. I missed it. I missed reading so much. I missed being able to lose myself in a book and I missed becoming invested in characters lives. I missed that little break from your own life that reading gives you.

Missing it wasn't enough to get back to where I had been though. It was enough to make an effort here and there, but after spurts of reading a small stack of books, I'd go back to rarely picking one up.

I had all the excuses. "I'm too busy.", "I'm too tired.", "My kids won't let me just sit down and read." Then I started to realize I was full of crap. I remember my mom telling me that everybody has time to read, but that it's all about how you prioritize your time. I also remember brushing that off and insisting that, no. Really. I had no time to read. Eventually, I realized my mom was right and I should have listened to her sooner (about this and about a million other things 😉 Love you mom!) I thought back to my own childhood and remembered her reading while she ate, while she cooked, at red lights... Everybody has time to read.

Many factors went into my decision to make reading a priority again, but chief among them was definitely the homeschooling curriculum we have been using this year. I've spent this whole school year (we only have 2.5 weeks left!!!!) reading so many really awesome books to my kids out loud and it has been such a wonderful reminder of the power of words! Along with that, watching Sam read better and better, and seeing him go through piles of books on his own has made me think about how much I loved books and reading as a kid, how excited I am for him to meet all of the characters I remember and still love, and how much I want to raise readers.

Now I feel like I'm 'back'. Like I can, once again, really for real be classified as a 'reader'. I stay up too late sometimes and neglect other things I should be doing sometimes (breakfast was a tad late this morning because I just had to finish the last chapter of Unbroken). I didn't realize just how much I missed this part of myself until I started finding it again, and I am so, so very glad that I did.