There will never be a good time, so now’s as good a time as any. It’s time for me to get back into reading.

Believe it or not, I used to be an avid reader. For the first thirty years of my life, I read all the time! I was never not reading for fun. I love books, stories, prose, poetry, and literature — always have.

But in the past few years, it seems like I’ve barely read for pleasure at all. What happened to me?

A few things. Mainly: I had kids. Four of them, in what strangers in public like to describe to me as “stair-stepper” fashion. My youngest is currently nine months, my oldest is six years. So, it’s been busy.

But other moms manage to make time to read for fun. Why haven’t I?

As you know if you read this blog, I’m someone who’s constantly plagued by a sense of “I should be doing something better,” “I shouldn’t be enjoying this so much,” “is this the most ethical way to do this,” et cetera. This inner voice has gotten much louder and more talkative since I converted to Catholicism and began to get serious about living an upright life. I don’t have much of an innate sense of balance, regarding moral questions. I’m an addict, I tend to extremes. Sometimes it goes haywire.

Which has kinda thrown a wrench in my relationship with reading.

For the past few years, I have a hard time reading just for pleasure. I have such limited free time, and when I do have free time I usually end up writing things. I figure if I’m gonna pick up a book, it should be for some purpose. Something edifying. Sacred Scripture or the Lives of the Saints or a parenting book or some saintly book. If I must read a novel, it should be one of The Classics. Something beautiful and holy. There are so many great books in the Western Canon. We have a responsibility to read beautiful, important works and to fill our brains with good content. I truly believe that.

And so whenever I go to the library (which is not as often as it used to be, because solo-parenting four small kids in a public library is a fucking marathon and always leaves me sweaty and anxious and mortified and completely drained, emotionally, mentally, and physically, for the rest of the day), I find myself just kind of paralyzed. Which Great Classic Work should I make myself read? Where to begin? — ah, who am I kidding, I’m not gonna make time for something difficult; may as well just not check out anything; and besides, back at home I have like six books on Catholic stuff, Catholic parenting and homeschooling, that I’m only a third of the way through! (On my limited budget, these are the only kinds of books I actually spend money on: the important ones.)

Don’t get me wrong. Like I said, I do love literature. Always have. I like dense and wordy books. In high school, I read the complete works of Nathaniel Hawthorne and Ivanhoe for fun. In college, I was majoring in German Lit. I’ve always been a book person, since childhood. Like 3-4 of my many tattoos are literary references. One of my all-time favorite authors is Donna Tartt (The Secret History, amirite?!). I loved The Mysteries of Udolpho too. Before getting pregnant, I read the entire works of David Foster Wallace, and have read Infinite Jest three times start to finish. I genuinely love it. I love long sentences and beautiful language and profound stories.

It’s just, I feel like, in recent years, my mental energy has been depleted, and I haven’t had the capacity or the energy.

I have read some, in recent years. Some guilty pleasure material: I read all of Canterwood Crest (Jessica Burkhart), and re-read Riding Academy (Alison Hart). I’ve read just about everything by Shari Lapena; her books are dangerously addictive, proceed with caution. I read The Haunting of Hill House, after watching the show. And, also, some more “highbrow” works: notably: Kingdoms of Savannah by George Dawes Green; The Bee Sting by Paul Murray; Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh, all of which I did truly enjoy (the former two being new works by old favorite authors, and the latter being more of an “I should really read this because everyone says it’s such an important work of Catholic literature”-choice, which surprised me by being, of all things, a gay love story).

But these were aberrations. And barely a fraction of as much as I used to read. And honestly, the busier I get, the less I read. The pattern keeps devolving.

Part of it is also that my beloved husband is more of a TV/movie guy than a book guy. He’s the one who got me into TV as a storytelling medium — I never really cared for shows, before, and would never have even wanted a TV in our house, but he insisted. And he showed me the light. I love TV now. There are so many good TV shows. Tv has become a big part of my life. And, in the limited time that we have together, my husband and I like to do something we can do together, to relax: we watch TV. It’s something we can share in real time. It helps us both turn our brains off at the end of an exhausting day.

I know, I know: “just listen to audiobooks together!” Maybe we should. Maybe this is an excuse, but I kind of don’t like audiobooks. The reader’s voice and inflections can be so distracting and affect my experience of the story. I prefer the privacy of my own brain. Also, for end-of-day relaxation, I prefer something with a visual element, because I also like to snack at night, and don’t like to be looked at while snacking (weird ED layover habit), so it’s nice to have something to look at besides each other’s faces.

So: I avoid reading for pleasure, and find myself just watching TV, blogging or writing little stories, or just scrolling the internet for fun, when I have time for fun.

Which is a shame!

A few things lately have moved me to get back into reading. For one: a bunch of you lovely people here on WordPress are always blogging about what you’re reading, and it makes me jealous. I can do that, too!, I exclaim pitifully in my head, stamping my little foot. I’m smart too! (Spoiler: I’m not.)

For two: my sister, whom I’ve always looked up to and kind of copycatted whether consciously or unconsciously, is a reader, and spending more time with her in the past year or so has inspired me to (once again) copycat her. To be cool like her. She’s a busy mom too, and she reads The Classics for fun! Why can’t I be like that?! Textbook sycophant little sister behavior.

For three, I know you can’t really be a writer unless you read. Anyone who says otherwise is being lazy and conceited. And, silly as it sounds, I still like to think of myself as a “writer.”

Four, and this is the main reason: I also just honestly miss it. Reading books is fun! Insanely fun. It really added to my life, much more than scrolling Instagram or reading Reddit or talking to ChatGPT.

So: it’s time.

The other day, while at the library with my kids, I decided: today’s the day. I’m going to get back into reading. Edifying or not, holy or not, I need to get back into reading books. Because even if it’s not the Summa theologica or St. Augustine’s Confessions, at least it’s better than staring into this accursed internet rectangle and becoming a drooling dead-eyed slave to The Algorithm.

I’ll even post my little discoveries on this stupid blog, because I too can be a book blogger, dammit!

So I asked Dr. Chat to recommend some authors, picked a couple at random, and grabbed a couple other random things off the shelf, and now, a couple days in, I am already back at it.

Stay tuned for upcoming posts to hear about what I’m getting into.