My first love…

Day 3-Your first love

My first love? This should probably be a  person, huh? And yet I know the real answer. Books. I’m a reader and have been since I was four. My grandma taught me how to read Go Dogs, Go! when I was four. Really I probably memorized it, but I still loved the power of telling myself the story.

I began to read everything in sight after that. I’m one of those people whose eyes just can’t stop themselves from reading. It makes me sort of nosy, but if my eyes see words, I have a compulsion to read them. And I have 20/10 vision (and possibly better – that’s where they stop measuring) so I can see pretty far away.

I tend to go in trends. Right now I’m on a historical romance novel kick. I suppose they’re nothing but fluff, but well, at the end of the day (which is when I read), my brain wants fluff and a happy ending. What can I say? I am a natural worrier so most of the “book club” books seem like they would just fuel my tendency to fret.

I also like to read cozy mysteries, meatier historical fiction, and biographies. I used to read true crime, psychological thrillers and straight-up mysteries (I don’t know the technical definition, but in my mind cozy mysteries are lighter, less gruesome reads). But then I had the 10PM Epiphany and I haven’t read those genres since.

The 10PM Epiphany? Why, that’s the realization that I worry less and sleep better if I go to bed without watching the 10PM dramas (I’m on the East Coast – remind me sometime to explain my theory about why Midwesterners tend to be nicer). A – my blood pressure doesn’t spike from the tension and get me in a pattern of getting all stressed and B – I don’t watch the news that comes on after it and trust me – that’s helped immensely. I’ve found that I can even tolerate waking up early in the mornings (and by that I mean before 9) since I had the Epiphany. Sort of. Still not a morning person, but I’m better.

I think once my kids are older and I sleep like a normal person (rather than being woken up by a two-year-old who can get out of her crib and wants to watch “Ooh-Ooh” - AKA Curious George – at 4AM tapping me with the remote), I might venture back into more literature type reads. In large print. Or maybe I’ll check out a Kindle for the text-enlarging feature. Yes, I have fab visual acuity, but a terrible attention span. Large print has less info on a page so I can absorb it better. Not a problem for fluff novels, but I need smaller chunks for the heavy stuff.