Confessions of a Burgeoning Bookaphobe

Ye gods. I think going to college made me stop reading. I'd like a little less irony with my coffee next time, universe.

I used to read so much that it's a wonder my eyes didn't liquify and dribble right down my face. I have memories of my mother steering me across parking lots because I refused to put my book down long enough to locate the crosswalk; I remember having to read sentences in three or four word snippets as my parents' car passed under streetlights. I was that kid in that movie with that flashlight under the covers, entranced by dragons or detectives or dastardly deeds long after lights out.

Then I went to college.

Somewhere in between mathematically constructing a fractal and learning how to deconstruct my ontology, I think I forgot how to read. I mean sure, I can still technically read. I do it all the time - street signs, news magazines, cable bills. It's still a compulsion. Hand me a box of toothpaste and I'll probably read the back of it. I think my husband actually tried that once.

But I don't know how to read. I'm somewhere in between chapters six and seventeen in probably five different books, but I can't seem to keep my brain from skittering away to some other diversion. I don't know if it was the working three jobs or the crazy college newspaper deadlines or the being forced to digest and intelligently respond to anywhere from 20 to 200 pages of material each day, but something about getting all book-learned sure has made me book-leery. And if I can't read anymore, how in the world am I supposed to write?

Yeah, yeah, I know. Shut up emo kid.