Reading, Riting, Rithmatic

Let’s just get that “Rithmatic” shit out of the way.  I don’t like it, I don’t do it (other than to dish out equal portions to 3 children who screamed unfairness that their sibling got “more than they did.”  I think I unconsciously gravitated to the helping careers because there was no math involved.  So that’s out of the way.

I love, love, love to read.  I think reading is a gateway for a time out or an escape from the harsh confounds of life.  What I have read has not really changed since I began reading in my younger years, however how I read has.  I cringed when my favourite book was released – in hardcover only.  See I read in bed and hardcover books are cumbersome and annoying and don’t sit properly.  I hate breaking the spine and usually with a hardcover (take a big breath fellow book reader), I get frustrated and snap the spine.  So it was a choice, muddle through a hardcover, or wait for the paperback.  I usually waited for the paperback.

Now I read digitally.  Again, not always the greatest way to read.  You have never experienced pain until the tablet you are reading your latest novel from, falls on your face as you realize you have actually drifted off to sleep.  I am always grateful that I don’t need my glasses to read as I only imagine that would intensify the pain.

I really had a sullen part of childhood.  I was a brooder; I spent a lot of time in my room.  My introvert side was quite prevalent as a child and young adult. Of course there are only so many books you can read before your eyes get crossed and so one day I decided to pick up a pen and write. 

My family is famous for writing stupid poetry to each other, poems about tripping over pigs and the like (never said I came from normality!).  My poems were harsh.  They were written from a place of pain and sadness and confusion and rarely were they about rainbows and butterflies.  I wrote a few stories, one of which I handed in as an English assignment and is still in the school library to this day.  I didn’t ever have any goals of becoming published.  I did it because I liked it.  I did it because it brought me some peace while my mind was occupied in the imagination zone.  I was able to scratch the scab and let it bleed if you will. (Like I said sullen, brooder).

I am not sure why I stopped writing.  I think a big part of it was that life got more enjoyable.  I got married and had children – oh, wait, there’s my answer right there.  Any parent knows that any recreational activity that requires aloneness and concentration cannot be achieved with little people under the age of 5.  Heck, I couldn’t even go to the bathroom alone until they were older and one of those little people still tries to talk to me through the door.

I also think that my ego kicked in and my inner voice let me know, quite loudly that I probably wasn’t good enough and should just stop wasting my time.  I am working even to this day to change that voice – it criticizes me in a lot of areas in my life.

So here I am, on this journey to rediscover Melanie.  The person, the woman.  Not the mother or the wife or the ex-wife or the friend, or the co-worker.  I know that person, but I have lost me, the person I once spent a lot of time alone with.  I have spent a good many years being all things for everyone else and have stepped off my own path, only to discover that I don’t know where I am anymore.  I don't think that everyone is going to like the fact that I am looking for my path, or like it when I get back on it and that's okay because you can't please everyone all the time and honestly I am pretty tired of trying to.