One quick scroll through my Instagram feed will tell you what matters most to me: my family, my dog, knitting, and books. (All right, maybe tacos and cheeseburgers too.) These are the great loves of my life. I am a full-time teacher and a single mom of two children.
I entered single motherhood in a state of ignorance. I knew I could take care of the girls by myself, but I didn’t really know yet what that would entail. Or, I knew but I didn’t know. I didn’t know that folding a load of laundry after dinner meant I couldn’t walk the girls to the park. Or that signing my oldest daughter up for an after-school club meant we wouldn’t get home in time to make dinner. Or that having to go grocery shopping would mean the girls couldn’t play with their friends. Everything became a series of choices, and I quickly had to decide what matters most to me: family, dog, knitting, books.
I have always loved reading, ever since I was a little girl with dreams of becoming a teacher. Give me a colorful character or a dramatic plotline and I am hooked . . . Just toss me a blanket and leave me alone. I love the way a book can take me out of my life for a short time. I love the way reading allows me to be still and to rest. I just love reading, and I imagine if you clicked on this article, you probably do too. But perhaps you imagine yourself too busy, too overwhelmed, too committed to other things to maintain your reading life right now. Maybe you have convinced yourself that you don’t have time to read. I felt that way too for a while, but once I decided reading mattered too much to let it go, I found some ways to maintain a reading life despite being really, really busy.
First I started listening to audiobooks as I drove to and from work. I have heard many people dismiss audiobooks, saying they just can’t listen to a book. You can, I promise. You have to train your brain. When I first started listening to audiobooks in the car, I would miss 80 percent of the story. My mind would wander quickly to the upcoming workday or the guy driving too fast behind me. I would miss minutes upon minutes of the story and have to hit that little 15-second Rewind button repeatedly. But over time and with practice, my mind was able to focus more and daydream less. Nowadays I hit the Play button as I back out of my driveway and don’t touch the controls again until I pull into the parking lot at work. Sometimes if I arrive at work a few minutes early, I just sit in my car and listen to a few more pages before I go in.
My brain has become so accustomed to listening to stories that now I can press Play as I fold laundry or mop my floors, and I’m able to follow along with ease (let’s hear it for multitasking!). As a matter of fact almost a quarter of the books I finished last year were audiobooks. Reading with my ears has really helped boost my reading life.
Another way I have managed to maintain my reading life in spite of, well, life, is reading at bedtime. Like most adults, I am absolutely exhausted at the end of the day. The kids are in bed, the dog is snuggled at my feet, and I am bone tired. I like to scroll through social media or spend some time watching TV before drifting off to sleep, and for a long time that’s what I did because I did not want to stay awake for another hour to read. Then one day I had the somewhat obvious realization that I didn’t need to read for an hour. What if I read for 15 minutes? It didn’t seem like much to me. It almost seemed pointless. But I missed reading, so I set a timer for 15 minutes and was surprised at how many pages I read in that time. Reading for 10 to 20 minutes in bed quickly became a habit, and I found myself finishing book after book.
Finally, I think the single biggest choice I made that allows me to maintain my adult reading life is giving myself permission to read. In the early years of parenthood, I told myself I would sit down and read after I sorted the laundry, after I made a grocery list, after I dusted the downstairs. Why was I imposing arbitrary rules on myself? Why was I gate-keeping my own reading life? So one morning I decided I was just going to read first. I would take care of all the household stuff later, but first I was going to sit down and read. And I have done so ever since. I no longer put reading last on my to-do list. I no longer make myself earn the right to read. I just read, and it is lovely. Everything is a choice, and sometimes I choose books.
When life gets busy and overwhelming, I remember what matters most to me. The great loves of my life. And I choose them. Over and over, I keep choosing them.
