I used to read so much. I used to lie in bed on Saturdays and read and read and read, only getting up to go to the loo and grab a quick snack just to go back to bed and continue reading. I used to walk down the street, nose in a book, glancing up to make sure I wasn’t walking into a ditch. Man, I loved to read.
And then my mum died. And I just couldn’t read any more. I couldn’t take the silence and I couldn’t pause my racing thoughts. I couldn’t quieten down. Every time I tried to the pain and anguish I was feeling at losing my mum would engulf me and I would cry and wail. I would think of the last time I saw her, holding her papery thin hands and remember that I would never do that again and I would close the book and distract myself (or cry and cry and cry). And then 2 years and 1 week later my dad died and all the mourning I had done for my mum added to the now current grief I was feeling for my dad and I thought about all of the things plus more and I could not open a book, nor watch a film, nor sit quietly with my thoughts because 99% of my thoughts were, “I miss my mum and dad”. Grief is a kicker.
In the past 4 years I have read maybe 5 books. That’s not a lot of books. That’s slightly more than 1 book a year. For someone who could read 1 book a day this is devastating. What’s more, I have had to reconcile myself with the knowledge that I am no longer a “reader”. Right? So, when asked what my hobbies and interests are I can’t, in all good conscience, say ‘reading’. I can say, ‘reading Wikipedia entries for random nonsense that occurs to me in the 15 seconds of silence between finding stuff to listen to’, but it’s a bit wordy.
I mean, what I’m saying here is who are we? Are we our hobbies? Our jobs? Are we our nationalities? Our teams? Our political parties? Yes and, of course, no. I can knit but I am not a knitter.
I am a reader who does not read.
Vicky Goes On (Again) 