To Read or Not to Read

Feed my reading habit or feed myself…. ahhhhh, the dilemmas of the unemployed. 

I guess I should start at the beginning.   I am an avid reader, I always have been, but with life and a full time job always getting in the way, I didn’t read as much as I would have liked.   Well, given my current situation, all I have is time and I’ve easily fallen back in love with reading. 

Where you ask, is the dilemma?? 

In honor of my love of reading, I’d like to share with you a short story.   After I lost my job last month, I made quite a few trips to my local book store.  After my last purchase, I came home, started reading and… with nothing on my agenda for the day but my book..  I had devoured it before the day was over.  That was $10 I had just spent (from a salary that was non-existent) to feed my reading habit.  I realized very quickly, that my desire to read was in direct conflict with the discretionary money I had to spend each week.   If I continued to feed my reading habit, I could easily spend about 10% of my unemployment check on books each week.    It doesn’t take rocket science to realize that something had to give and unfortunately it would be my new book purchases.    Needless to say, I have decided to book exchange with friends and to explore a once forgotten place (in the age of technology & discretionary money) called the library.

I had forgotten that there once existed this magical place, where imagination roams free, encyclopedias provided information rather than Wikipedia & Google and maybe the occasional dust collects.  I wistfully remember, the smell of old books, the micro-fiche reader, the card catalogs.  But, far more importantly… a place that allows you to enjoy a book without owning it or buying it!   How could 20 years have passed without setting foot in one of these wondrous buildings… would I even recognize it?  Would I feel like I had entered a foreign land, where they spoke a foreign language?  I mean after all, I’m not naive enough to think that today’s library looks anything like the library of my early years!  But, I’m up for the challenge, and, who knows maybe just maybe, I can save up some of that unspent money and feed some other passion this summer!

So…wish me luck, I’m off to save money,  feed my mind and get reacquainted with a forgotten friend….