Recently I have found myself in a new job. While it is not what I dreamed about doing as a kid, it still allowed me to slough off the weight of the toxic work environment I was previously stuck in. This change in life circumstances has give me a little bit of extra energy. Not wanting to squander this new infusion of energy, I have made a plan for myself. Part of the promise I made to myself was that everyday I would read fifty pages of a book, and that I would commit to doing this for a couple of months.

I have always loved books. However, I haven’t always made time for reading. In college I majored in liberal arts, writing papers about film directors and reading widely both in class and in my free time. I kept up my reading after I graduated. I would sneak out to my car during lunch breaks at my jobs post college. Away from my coworker’s eyes I would drink to-go coffee and read essays in my vehicle with the little bit of free time I could steal. As you can imagine, this did not make me very popular. It was seen by some as a vaguely anti-social act.

Increasingly, my day-to-day life was pulling me away from reading. As I drifted into my late 20’s, I found that I was surrounded by fewer and fewer readers. At first, this shift bothered me and I tried to fight it. I would sneak off and try to cram a few pages in, away from the eyes of my more judgmental friends. I found that my hobby was often met with mild derision or even loud suspicion from a lot of the people in my life. While I have always loved books, I am only human. I wanted to fit into the town I lived in at the time. It was a place that was proud of its down-to-earth wisdom and suspicious of things that were too immaterial. I started reading less and going to bars more. I traded novels for television so that I had something to talk about with friends and lovers.

A decade later and my life has shifted further. I moved to a larger city. I have abandoned some of my more youthful anxieties around acceptance. I no longer surround myself with people to avoid being alone. I am much pickier about who I befriend. I no longer allow people into my life who express derision towards my interests. This change of physical and psychic scenery made me itch to start reading again.

I went the last couple of years reading maybe one to two books a year. But over the past quarter, I have been reading double that amount each month. Suddenly, my desire to consume writing feels fevered. It reminds me of being young. A period where I felt intensely curious about the world and excited by all of the possibilities it held. I am deeply grateful that I am now surrounded by people that encourage me to explore my sense of curiosity about the world.