Falling in (and out of) Love with Reading

[image error]Let me start off by saying that I love reading. It’s one of my favorite pastimes and I know my life would be a much bleaker place without a good book in hand. When an author successfully transports me to a different time period, a different planet, a different point of view, a different lifestyle, or a different kink, I couldn’t be happier. Books keep me company on my commute to and from work each day and come along with me on every trip I take, both for business and pleasure. In fact, the biggest reason I decided to try my hand at writing was because of my deep and abiding love for reading.

But this wasn’t always so.

For nearly ten years, while I pursued advanced degrees in literature, reading became my career. Novels, poetry, plays, critical articles, literary theory – I read it all. I devoured, dissected, and diagrammed centuries of literary tradition and committed it to memory. Having given up reading for pleasure – there simply wasn’t enough time to read anything non-canonical – I began to fall out of love with reading. Even when I could find a spare moment to relax, the last thing I wanted to do was read. And yes, it was bleak indeed.

[image error]Thankfully, once I left academia (and gave myself a good six months to recover), I rediscovered my love of reading and haven’t looked back since. Okay, okay, I admit it. There’s nothing too exciting or profound about this post. However, I did want to share that it’s nice to know that even when I lost my passion for reading, when I thought I’d never be able to stand the sight of another page, it wasn’t gone for good.

Reading was just waiting for me to find my way back. To fall in love all over again.