This year has been quite interesting, to say the least. Staying inside and not seeing people or being able to go out has left us sitting with ourselves a lot. To some people, alone time is an absolute dream! But to others, this can be isolating and quite difficult. Personally, I never liked to sit around and be in my own company before quarantine. Sure, I would have days where I lounge around at home, but I’d much rather go outside or be with people because I would get bored sitting by myself. After a few months, I got sick of scrolling aimlessly on my phone, and there’s only so many times you can call your friends and ask what they’re doing… because chances are, they’re doing exactly what you are. So, I decided to pick up some of my childhood interests that I totally forgot about. The biggest one being reading books for fun.
As a kid, I loved reading. I would take books with me everywhere: when we were going out to a store, a restaurant or to a family friend’s house. I’d stay up late as a kid (late being past 9:30) and read my books because I was so engaged in the stories. To give a better idea, in second grade, our class had to read 100 books throughout the entire year, and I finished this goal within the first few months of school. I was also super outdoorsy as a kid too, so I honestly don’t know how I had all this time to read.
I was like this until ninth grade. Maybe I wouldn’t read 100 books in a few months anymore, but I would still read in my spare time. I didn’t even have a smartphone until the end of eighth grade so I couldn’t really do anything on that either. When high school began, I became a lot busier with school and had a lot of other things to worry about. I also had readings to do for my classes, which made me associate reading with school. I also got a “real phone” at this time, so my spare time consisted of me being on that.
On the rare occasion when I would read, the books were more of a self-help style, as I felt like I was an “adult” now, so it was appropriate to read educational material instead. Although I enjoy these, they’re not exactly books that you can sit for an hour and read. It’s more of an “I’ll read a few pages one day, and I’ll pick it up again when I need it.”
One day, I was bored with my phone and found a book that I had bought but never finished reading- it wasn’t too long and I knew the story was interesting so I started to read it. I finished it so quickly and I was shocked. I totally forgot how it felt to just sit and read, especially a book that was not meant for school.
Getting back into reading was freeing for me as I got to connect back to the younger, more carefree version of myself. I also started to eliminate the idea that doing things that seemingly had “no purpose” is pointless; for example, I didn’t have to read a book that provided me with profound information. I could just sit and read for my own entertainment.
I feel like, as we age, we naturally become a little hardened on the outside. We have responsibilities and goals, and we need to take care of ourselves, so we think that we don’t have time to just enjoy little things! Honestly, we always have a little bit of time to ourselves, but that time can easily get sucked up while doing other tasks.
If you’ve read any of my articles before, you know that I think it’s so important to take time for yourself. If you don’t know what to do and want to take a break from technology, try to do something that made you happy when you were younger. It’ll give you a chance to reconnect with your inner child and can bring you a lot of joy. So, pick up a book, an old game or sport that you used to love; you might just fall in love with it all over again.