Chats Over Coffee #1
My Relationship with Reading
I started reading as a hobby in fourth grade which means I was around 9 or 10 when the act of picking up a book for fun finally intrigued me. Prior to that, I had an immense loathing for it and didn’t want to be near a single book ever. It was less about “seeming cool” or required readings and more about the feeling of embarrassment. Reading embarrassed me because, unlike my peers, it was difficult for me.
I remember being pulled out of class by tutors because my reading level or comprehension or whatever was too low for my school's standards. At first, there were a couple of students that were pulled alongside me, but eventually that stopped and I was alone struggling to finish a book. I don’t necessarily remember struggling with the words or why I was having such a problem with this. But I remember the first book that made my eyes light up and my heart expand with admiration.
Like I said, I was in the fourth grade and despised the act of reading. One day in particular, my entire class took a trip to the school library (back then we had a library IN the school) and were tasked with picking out 2-3 books to borrow. Naturally, I didn’t care for this task and spent our time there mindlessly walking by the shelves. At one point I did a full 180 and my eyes immediately locked on a yellow spine amidst the sea of dark ones.
Why was this bright color infiltrating all the other solemn ones?
I immediately made my way across the space and pulled it out only to come face to face with a doll and the title scrawled in pretty script Pretty Little Liars. I didn’t know what it was about, nor did I care, I just knew this was the book I needed to borrow. That day I left the library with one book tucked in my arm and eventually hid it under my desk to read during that day's math lesson. It was the first book I ever finished. The first book I ever loved and the book that changed everything for me. Little did I know, the show adapted from this book would release in the following year and that too changed the trajectory of my life and interests.
I realized that day something that my tutors couldn’t figure out… I could read and I was good at it, I just needed a book I actually cared about. Maybe this isn’t the most ideal story for a literal child, but you get the point. Fast forward to present day and I couldn’t possibly imagine my life without a mountain of books to keep me company. But, I’ve noticed that reading has become less about enjoyment and more about statistics.
I joined the book community in May of 2020 after discovering BookTube for the first time. My wallet has not been the same since but neither have my reading habits. After reflecting on what stresses me out about reading and how I can absorb books in a meaningful way, I’ve concluded that there's one crucial thing I needed to do. Moving forward, the need to read a certain amount of books per month needs to be eliminated. I don’t want to define myself by how much I can read in a 30 day period. There’s no real gain or reward for this societally doctrined accomplishment. Nor do I want to feel disheartened for being stuck on a book for weeks.
For me, as for many, reading is an escape from real life. It’s a chance for me to practice self-care and indulge in something that brings me genuine joy. Therefore, I have to nurture this aspect of my life in a way that doesn’t feel so competitive or toxic. Prior to joining this community, I never cared about how long I took to finish a particular book or how many I read in a month. It made for a much more enjoyable experience which resulted in many amazing reads throughout the years. I simply cared about the content rather than the statistics.
I think this innate desire to finish 20+ books in a month stems a lot from the silent competitive nature of the community. We see many blog posts with titles such as “How to Read More Books” and “How to Become a Faster Reader”, that we forget that reading was never about speed. It’s an opportunity to slow down our very fleeting life and get lost in a different world.
As I continue to reinvent myself and learn new things about the me I don’t see, I want to keep this reflection in mind. I’m not going to count how many books I read in a month, nor am I going to care how far behind I am in my Goodreads goal. I’m simply going to read. For myself. For this newsletter. For my blog. And I’m going to enjoy it for however long it takes me to reach the end cover. That being said, I will clown myself because I said I would read more physical books this year and well…
Maybe that’s the next thing I’ll tackle.
With love & a cup of coffee,
Tathy
Hi, welcome to Chats Over Coffee. Originally, this segment was part of my blog but I’ve recently decided that I wanted to share this with my newsletter. There’s something more intimate about what we have here and as these are my vulnerable and sometimes weird thoughts, I want to make it exclusive for this little community. Consider this my journal or our chats over a nice cup of coffee. I don’t have a strict schedule for these. You’ll be receiving them as they’re dumped from my brain onto my Google Docs. I hope that you’re able to enjoy, relate, reflect or what have you with these rambles. If you click to the CBN home page, you’ll see that I’ve uploaded the last two COC’s from my blog onto Substack. But, as this is the first exclusive Substack COC, we’ll call this #1.
And as always, feel free to leave a comment (if you’re on the app) or respond to this email if you want to chat. I promise I’m friendly.