This was originally posted on The Middle Years Journey February 2019

by crystal | Feb 5, 2019 | The Middle Years Journey | 8 comments

Darn it, I am determined to rediscover my love for reading this year!

Gone are the days when I could spend my allowance at Kmart to get the latest Judy Blume or Babysitters Club book. I would look forward to going home, sitting in my favorite chair and read my books all day. Library day in elementary school were my favorite days of the week, not to mention getting the Scholastic/Arrow/Troll book order forms to take home. I’d take my sweet time looking at the brochure circling my top picks and adding up the cost on the back to make sure I wasn’t spending more than my allotted $10.00. In the 1980s $10.00 would buy you at least six paperbacks and a Michael Jackson poster! It seemed like it took months for the book orders to be delivered to our classroom. I’d get giggly figuring out which to read first. Don’t get me started on the Scholastic Book Fairs. OMG, I’d be like my Mom at a Mervyn’s Super Sale. Bookmarks, posters, stickers, you name it the book fair had it.

Fast Forward to high school. I still found time outside of choir, theater, and football games to read. My fondest memory of reading during this time was discovering the late great Jackie Collins. Jackie Collins wrote the juiciest and salacious books around. You have to remember this was the time of late night soaps. Glamour, power, and sex defined that decade. My first Jackie Collins novel was Hollywood Wives. I was in awe. Imagine my excitement when I saw the movie! It’s still one of my favorite miniseries. My girlfriends and I would go to Walden Books and buy the paperbacks on the cheap and read them cover to cover. The best part was thinking knew all about romance, sex and boys just by reading these trashy books. Uh… what in the hell were we thinking? Imagine our disappointment when high school boys were nothing like Lucky Santangelo’s conquests. We’d even try to write our own novels. Someone would buy a spiral bound notebook, and we’d each write a paragraph or two and pass it to the next person. None of us knew the first thing about love and lust, but boy did we try!

In my early adulthood, I always made time to read. Going to the library was my idea of a good time. I’d take full advantage of the 24 item checkout limit. These were the years I broadened my reading repertoire. As my daughter got older and life got busier, my library trips became more and more infrequent. I’d find books that I’d bought but never got a chance to read. When the Kindle came out, I added that to my Christmas list. In the beginning, I would download books weekly. What a concept, I could have a crap load of digital books that would be at my fingertips instead of books in boxes I’d forgotten all about. Yea that didn’t work out either. I’m not even going to tell you just how many of those books from 2012 I downloaded and still haven’t read.  In midlife, I’m trying to make more time for myself. Reading more is at the forefront of my list of 2019 goals.

There are a few obstacles I’m facing:

• Finding time – between working all day, cooking, cleaning and blogging when can I read?
• TBR Pile – My TBR (to be read) pile is growing. I have books in the corner, in my nightstand, and in bags. I have no idea which one to start first.
• Physical, Digital, or Audio – I can “read” more books when I listen to them on audio. In the car, on walks, or at my desk, I can read the latest and feel like I accomplished something.

To help rediscover my love of reading, I’ve come up with a few goals:

• Read 1 -2 books a month – I’m not going to overthink what to read, I’m just going to grab one and go for it.
• Read one self-help book every three months – Now that I am a midlifer, I’m starting to read and appreciate self-help books. This is probably because the older I’m getting, the more issues I seem to have. I don’t want to get overzealous with the self-help books and walk around thinking I have every emotional complex known to man. So if I pace myself, I think I’ll be golden
• I signed up for the 2019 Goodreads Challenge.  I pledged to read 45 books in 2019. That’s a lofty goal even for me, but I’m determined.
• Go on a used bookstore tour – My friends Sue and Sam are bookworms too. We all have a hankering for used bookstores. There is nothing like the smell of used books. It’s almost euphoric. We plan on doing a used bookstore tour this summer. It’s a win-win. We can buy a bag full of books cheap, AND we can support small business. I can also sell my old books as I’m done with them and get store credit
• Make time – I’m going to make sure to aside 1 hour per day to read with no distractions. If I can stick to that, I should be able to finish 2 -3 books a month!

Reading is an excellent form of escapism. With all of life’s daily stresses, I need that now more than ever. I mean when you say you want to punch someone in the throat you know you really can’t (no one wants an assault charge on their record) but I sure can read about someone doing it and enjoy every moment of it.

Do you read as much as you used to? What are your reading goals for the year?