So, I feel really bad because I just haven't been posting at all this month. I had a slew of posts that I was going to do because of my involvement in the Summer Under the Stars blogathon, but then . . . something happened on August 16; something so horrendous that it gave me nightmares for days, even in my waking hours I couldn't escape it. It haunted me. It made me sick. It made want to scream. It made me want to throw hysterical fits in grocery store aisles and cause my parents alarm and give ol' Happy Dale a ring (please, please tell me someone caught that allusion to a certain film with my wonderful Cary . . . and if not one of you wonderful readers did catch it, I hang my head in sadness).
What, some of you may be asking, what could possibly cause this rationally sane girl to go insane? What could possibly reduce her to wanting to make fits in grocery store aisles and make her parents ship her off to a sanitarium? Tell me, now! Tell me! Okay, okay, you beat it out of me. It causes me such pain to say this dreadful six-letter word, but if you must know, if it gives you peace of mind, I'll push back my own pain, and tell you: School.
Yes, school has been in full swing for a couple of weeks now, and because it's my last year and I had to be an idiot and decide that I'd take A.P. Lit (which really isn't that bad at all) and just completely stink at math, and have a job that slurps up any free time that I could possibly have, I've been absolutely rendered from posting anything. On the weekends, I'm sleeping into well past the afternoon mark trying desperately to stock up on the snoozes, but it's done mostly in vain for I always find myself tired, and by the time Friday rolls around, I feel like I'm a floundering wanderer lost in the Sahara desert searching, always searching, for an oasis.
I must admit that I have tried to write up a few things, but then I just get bored and I forget about it and I don't end up posting them. Also, when I'm not sleeping or at work or doing homework, I have found myself back in very familiar territory, something that came long before my love of Classic Hollywood, Cary Grant or Dean Martin: Reading. Anyone that knows me knows that I LOVE to read; but when I found my new loves, I sort of set reading aside. Whereas it usually took me about two days to read books as long as Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, I was going weeks without cracking open a book and reading just for the pleasure of reading. I didn't, and I don't, like that. Reading has been my safe haven ever since I learned the magic of words; ever since I learned that by cracking open a book, I could transport myself wherever and whenever I wanted to. I would stay up until the slimmest of rays from the new light of dawn peaked between my tightly shut blinds, and bring me out of my world of ink and imagination to show me that a night had ended and a newly birthed day had began in my world of reality.
I have missed that. I missed the itch that my palms would get every time I passed by a library or a bookstore; I missed the idea of all the books just awaiting for me to discover them, to love them, to treasure them. I missed discovering the meaning of a new word and the way it would roll around in my head, and then my tongue, and the nice fluid way it would come out of my mouth when I would use my newly discovered word in a conversation. I missed visiting the public library twice a week. I missed the old smell of books that have been closed for far too long; I missed the touch of yellowing pages between my fingers.
I missed it all, and so it gives me great, great pleasure in saying that at last I have found my world again. It has welcomed me back with open arms, cocooning me in its familiar warmth, forgiving me for my long absence and assuring me that I never could have lost my safe haven had I even really tried . . .
. . . The feelings that I have just spewed are feelings that I believe everybody should have when it comes to reading, but sadly, not everyone does. You can't possibly imagine how it pains me when someone says to me, "You like to read? Why? It's so boring. I hate it." It's worse then a sharp knife cutting through me. It's as though my very heart and soul has been ripped out of my body with someone's bare hands, and then just for his or her sadistic pleasure, stomping on them until they are nothing more than crushed particles mixing in with the dirt and bugs and the rest of the earth and her au naturel glory . . .
. . . And now, I am left in an embarrassing position. I don't know how to end this post without sounding as completely out of my mind as I do in the main body. I guess I could say that I'm learning to balance everything in my life, and suggest that if you're life isn't already balanced that you get it so because if you don't, you might end up like me writing a very, very random post to let your readers (no matter how few they may be) that you are still alive and then end up sounding all cockeyed because you spew your guts about your obsessively insane love for reading and how you feel when you don't get enough of it. Yeah. That's how I'll end this post. See. I just did.
3 comments:
It's hard being a teenager with so many responsibilities. Hey, it's good that you like to read.
BRAVO! Your incredible paean to reading may be just what the doctor ordered, saving your parents the need to call Happy Dale! (Yes, I found the film where the reference is from, actually one which I always enjoyed, but needed a bit of help from Uncle Bing!)
Touching base once again with your safe haven will hopefully fortify you, allowing you to better manage and balance all of your activities!
But really, you had no need at all to apologise , for you have indeed posted wonderful pieces this month, and we never doubted your being alive and kicking! Thank you for feeling the need however, which resulted in this most beautiful post, a true prize winner!
We greatly appreciate your devotion to us, and eagerly await what is to follow!
This is such a great post!
And good luck with school this year. :)
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