Books - A Recovery of a Life Long Love

The tears swell as I write this post.

I am alone in my room.

In my room, yes that is what it is now that my relationship with the old me, the old us, the old life has now ended. I feel like I am crossing the threshold, nearing that gate where I know that once I step through it, this part of my life has really ended.

I am alone and the term ‘divorce’ keeps beating around in my head.

Once upon a time it used to be our room, our bed, our life and now this is just mine. It is my life as a single woman. A single woman who is undergoing a complete life transformation, not just from this relationship alone.

This has been a long burning, long time coming overhaul and death. It is the death of so many parts of my life that I have wanted to burn and been burning since I was sixteen and I held the angry blade to my skin because I had my notebook taken away from me, my autonomy dictated to me and I had the only salvation keeping me alive [ books] removed from me. I had my sanity lobotomised.

How do you get that back?

Once upon a time our bedroom was filled with books and our life was filled with books and our days and nights were filled with trips to the bookstore, reading by the river, late night sessions till the early morning and days in bed reading together with the blankets pulled up tight and a pot of tea. Reading was OUR THING...it was the thing that united us from the get go, our passion for words, for worlds and for escape.

I didn’t want to touch a fiction book when the first realisation of upcoming death came and whispered in my ear. “You need to leave him. This is toxic”

I didn’t want to take my pile of new books to the bedroom, spend hours in bed, escaping to fantasy lands, magickal places, seeking treasure within the pages. “You can’t live in a fantasy land. You need to be realistic,” my ego would say. The voice was that scared part of me, my inner child that was clawing at the bookshelves while my survivor instincts dragged me by the feet back to a constant state of alert anxiety.

I didn’t want to admit that I missed that part of our relationship more than most of it and that I had tied this one thing that I loved [probably more than humans honestly] to someone.

I never knew how deeply ingrained it had become entwined with the way I saw myself in our relationship together and my relationship with myself, alone, until shit hit the fan and I became resistant to everything that reminded me of him.

I would start books and put them down. Not knowing what was going on beneath everything that was unfolding.

Was it me? Was I lazy? Had I fallen out of love with the pleasure of reading?
Was I unfocused?

I knew that I had trouble focusing without going down memory lane. It was deeper than that though. It went beyond this ‘divorce’ and was steeped in the truth that I had already begun ‘divorcing’ parts of myself while I was in this relationship in order to protect it, to keep it safe and alive. All my energy had to go to this charade. I had to be on alert, both for chances of me slipping up and chances where the winds could change and I would need a safe place to go to.

Books were not my safe place anymore and when I finally got clear of the toxicity and it started to bleed out and awaken me to many of the paths that needed healing, by then I thought it was too late to go back. I thought that my relationship with the pages was as good as gone and that it wouldn’t have me anymore. like a comforting parent, or a best friend, or an adventure I had left behind to pursue this relationship. I was wrong. I am wrong. Reading has always been there, it’s just been me who was scared to come back.

I am alone in my room.

The tears have stopped and I realise now what I need to do to regain my sanity.

My life right now is about radical recovery. It is about regaining the parts of me that are core to my heart and live within every sinew of my being. Reading lives in the marrow. I couldn’t chisel it out of me, even if I tried. Words are etched on my bones and their whispers live in my blood and I know that if I give them the chance to build that relationship anew again that they will provide me with the chance to rebuild my ideas around pleasure and facing my fears. When I don’t read I become a monster to myself. My shadows trick me; they play games of illusion to keep me low down and dishonest with myself.