Recovering from Reader’s Rock Bottom
I’m reading Pride and Prejudice for the first time. Sometimes I feel embarrassed that I made it through a BA in English and all the way to 40 without reading Austen.
But two facts should thoroughly dispel that shame: 1) No one can read everything. It’s just not possible. 2) I’m reading again after I went years not reading a single book.
Five years ago, I noticed I couldn't read anymore. I was reading an article that had started out interesting but as it went on, I just … drifted away. My eyes started to glaze. I’d finish a paragraph only to realize I had no recollection of its contents.
I’d always considered myself a reader, so this was an issue for me.
I was the kid who read by the faint night light bulb long after lights out. I was the one who died on the hill for a light to read by before falling asleep, after discovering I had married a man who did not read in bed.
Reading expands our human experience, even without changing our experience. Even though I can’t actually see through someone else's eyes, or live a different life story, I can better understand any number of them through reading.
Reading slows us down. It centers our focus and attention. In seasons with an especially full schedule, I have found it is essential to build in time for some kind of grounding activity.
So after I hit my reader’s rock bottom, I made some changes. Screens and scrolling had helped diminish my attention span, so I put limits on those. I picked up a beloved standby, Anne Of Green Gables, and started there. The nostalgia of how I’d loved reading and re-reading the Anne series years before helped pull me along when I had to keep re-starting a page as I worked to build my focus.
Eventually, I finished the series and kept going. Kids’ books were a great option, so next I dove into N. D. Wilson’s Outlaws of Time series. Then, keeping on the time-travel streak, I re-read Madeleine L’Engle’s Time trilogy.
For a few years, I set a goal to read more books than the year before. I ended up with 15 in 2017, then 18 and 20-some the next years. Then I dropped the goals and kept the habit. I generally have a book going at all times (either fiction or non-fiction). I love ending the day with reading, or escaping into another world over a lunch break or on a lazy weekend afternoon.
It was work, but it was worth it. I learned that 1 - The brain can be re-trained. 2 - It’s worth finding the things that make you feel more like yourself, and making time for them.
