Reader longs for time with beloved books

You know how it is when you’re young. You take it for granted. You can do it any time you want to – first thing in the morning, right after work, last thing at night. Sometimes, even a little during lunch – and you think it will be like that forever. You think you’ll always have the time and the energy.

Then you get older and busier. You get married, the children come along, and you finally have to admit you’re just too tired. Life gets complicated and there is so much else to do.

It’s not like you don’t want to, the thought is always on your mind, but when you finally get the chance you just can’t keep your eyes open long enough. You snuggle up, get the lights just like you want them, find a position that’s comfortable, and start. Then, you fall asleep right in the middle and lose your place. It’s hard to remember where you were, so you go back to the beginning and start over. And it takes longer and longer to finish. Eventually, you don’t even bother to start anything at all; you just turn off the light, roll over and go to sleep.

You learn to live without a romance, without a mystery. You get out of touch. You get frustrated, edgy and out of sorts.

Well, that’s what’s happened to me. And I’m telling you, if I don’t get a little time alone with a good book soon, I’ll lose what’s left of my mind.

I haven’t opened a new book in forever. Oh, I still pick them up and bring them home, but lately that’s as far as I get.

I’m even in a book club (The Margarita and Salsa Book Club as a matter of fact, but what’s in a name?) Unfortunately, most of the time the only thing I contribute to the conversation is to say how much the current selection – which I didn’t have time to read – reminds me of a book I read last year, or a decade before that. (I do, however, manage to finish my margarita.)

I’ve become a raconteur, recounting the printed conquests of my youth; reminiscing about the books I knew and loved when I was in my prime.

These days, the best I can hope for is a literary quickie; a few minutes spent on a short story or magazine piece, because when I finally get a quiet moment the day is already gone and I’m exhausted. I fall into bed, cast a longing eye toward the stack of books on the table, and then forget about it.

I have a friend whose mother has always loved to read and spent every free moment she could steal away from a house full of children with her nose buried in a book.

Now that my friend’s mother is in her late 70s or early 80s, and has weathered raising a family, a late-life divorce and a very companionable remarriage, she does what she always wanted to do; she reads all day long. Seriously, all day long. Her husband putters happily around the house and she cozies up with a book. Those crazy newlyweds.

There is a lesson here somewhere. I think it means that although it might take another 30 or 40 years, the day will come when I’ll have the time and energy to dive into the sack as soon as I bring it home from the bookstore. I’ll get my second wind and have a little fun between the covers of a good read whenever I’m in the mood.

And you’d better believe I won’t take that for granted again.