Literary Estrangement

By Nikki Wilson

I love to read. I always have. I remember my excitement as I first learned to read. Reading has always been there for me. Books have been my stress reliever and my best friends for many years. Yet in the past 5 weeks I found myself not enjoying to read. Oh the horror!

I've been stressed out and needing to escape into a book. I would open a book to read it only to get distracted by my thoughts, or unable to focus on the words on the page. It felt like too much work to read a book. How could that be? Reading had never been a chore for me. Even in high school when I had to read some pretty boring stuff.

But there I was too stressed out to even read. I continued to try to engage in reading but couldn't get into a book. Finally, one night while perusing the Phoenix digital library I found a book from an author I have read before. The book was about a woman about my age and with more similar problems than some of the other books I'd been trying to read. So I downloaded it. It was about 10pm when I started reading it and it was 1am when I finished reading it. I couldn't put it down. When the book was over I was tired but happiness coursed through me. I read a book! A whole book! And I felt so much better. I think I just needed a book where the character was closer to my situation. I didn't need an escape from my life like I thought. I needed a friend that understood my life. I needed to see a part of my life from a different perspective. Not that the character had the same exact problems as me, but she too was married with children and working a job. This was all the connection I needed to feel us bond. I was able to make a new literary friend.

So when I look at all the books on the market these days, I'm grateful there are so many chances for me to make a new literary friend. Because sometimes I need friends I can escape with, and sometimes I just need friends that understand me. But whatever I need, I know I can eventually find it in a book!