From Avoiding Reading to Avoiding Life

If I were to describe my relationship with reading in one word, it would be complicated. When I was younger I hated reading. I was always the slowest reader among my peers, and being the competitive person I am, if I wasn’t the best at something, I just wasn’t going to do it. I would do just about anything to avoid reading. I would fake being asleep, fake being sick, pretend to clean my room—literally anything I could think of to get out of reading. 

My mom was not having this behavior. She decided that she was going to force me to read. Every once in a while she would not let me do anything I wanted to do until I read for at least 20 minutes. Now some may think that I would just read for the required amount of time. Well that would be incorrect. If I picked up a book, I was not putting it down until it was finished. 

I remember one day, summer of fifth grade, I decided to pick up a book that my grandma had at her house. I do not remember the name of the book, but I do remember that I sat in her living room for hours while everyone else was hanging out outside. I did not care what they were doing or if they were having fun. I was so caught up in what I was reading that nothing else existed and I did not put the book down until I was finished reading it. 

Once I got into a book I always enjoyed reading and didn’t want to stop once I started. However, as soon as I finished that book I hated reading again. As soon as I finished the book I was into I was always so sad that it was over. I hated that feeling. I didn’t want to pick up another book and get attached to the characters or the story and be upset all over again when it ended. I decided that if I didn’t pick up a new book I wouldn’t have to worry about that feeling. 

My summer going into my freshman year of college I decided I needed to grow up. I picked up the memoir Educated by Tara Westbrook. I read this book in a single day and loved every minute of it. The story was about a woman who, As a child, Westbrook is not allowed to read anything except for religious texts. She homeschools herself secretly and puts herself through college. Reading about her life  made me realize that I was taking my ability to read anything I wanted to for granted. From that point I realized I actually enjoyed reading, and I was going to get over my fear of finishing books. From that point on, I have never left the house without a book.

With this a new problem arose. From then until now, I prioritize reading above everything else. I have missed deadlines, canceled plans, pushed back projects—all so that I could finish my book. My reading relationship went from one unhealthy extreme to the next. At this point it has become an addiction, and I am not really sure where it all went wrong. Eventually I went from doing everything I could to avoid reading to avoiding everything in my life to escape in a book. To be completely transparent though, I’m not really sure I mind.