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I've been reading a lot of books lately. Probably more in the last 5 months than I have in the last 5 years. That's sad. The last 5 years part. Not the last 5 months part. That's not sad at all. That's healthy and liberating and amazing. Even though other parts of my life are a bit neglected (read: I am well aware that my kitchen floor looks like that) parts of my brain are reconnecting in a way that they haven't for a very long time.

When I was little, I used to eat books. It would take me a day or two to get through a Laura Ingalls or an Anne or a Nancy Drew or a Beezus or Peter Hatcher or Anastasia or whatever Newbery winner it was that I was reading that second. And it would change every ten minutes. I couldn't read enough. I loved a series, because I needed more than 300 pages to get enough of everyone.

The characters weren't my best friends, but the books were. Plus, no one punishes you by keeping you away from your books. That would be bad parenting at it's baddest.

One of the reasons I used to read was because it took me away from whatever it was going on in my life. In good times and in bad times books were always an escape. Always.

Never was I ever worried about anything that went on in my books.

These days I feel like everything I read is talking directly at me. Showing me some sort of side of a situation that maybe I haven't considered before. A different point of view, one that isn't mine, one that used to be mine, one that should be mine.
Words that scream repercussions of a thought, of a feeling, of a behavior that I never considered until page 256, second paragraph down. Third line in. 4am.

Whether I'm reading a classic or the latest and greatest NYT bestseller, I can find something that completely relates to my life as it is Right. Now. And now. And now. And then. And that time too. I don't know how I feel about it, but it certainly is making me think.

Making me think that I'm not so unique or special or alone after all, and that is a very good feeling.

A very bad feeling is thinking you are the only one in the whole wide world who is scared of _____ because you are thinking ______ and doing _____ to cope.