Imagine floor-to-ceiling shelves overflowing with every book you could read in your lifetime, a cosy, picture-worthy nook to curl up in, and most importantly, all the time you need to explore every page on said shelves.

Reality: a teetering stack of unread books on your nightstand, an imaginary clock ticking, and the ability to craft endless excuses for not reading.

There are books in every room in my house. The house is small, but comparatively, my books take up more space than our furniture.

The books on my shelves are my friends; some I know better than others; some I adore; others I like less, but I cannot part with them because they are a part of my history. They are dog-eared, scribbled in, held together with tape, read, and reread. I am attached to all my books, even those I have not read yet. This makes my current plight infuriating: too many unread books on my shelves.

I have recently decided to work from home. This sounds great. Except, I have yet to find work. The search for freelance work takes hours of research, reading, looking, hoping, praying, etc. (I have my first excuse.) It is all rather exhausting. Then, when I struggle to sleep, I want to write. As I am an aspiring writer, I must try. (If I don’t get side-tracked by dog rescue videos on Facebook, British comedy, or something about extraordinary archaeological discoveries.)

I longingly look at the stack of unread books on my nightstand when I go to bed. They are beautiful books, classics, all worthy-of-my-time novels. But a to-be-read list that rivals the length of a novel harbours an ugly irony.

If only the bandits were worth talking about. Everyone is intimately familiar with the vortex that is social media, the neverending chores, and those sacred stolen moments when all you want to do is not think, speak, or even see.

So why do I have a pile of unread books where I can see them daily?

The pile of books reminds me of beauty, the beauty of words and stories, the beauty of discovering and exploring worlds I will never be able to travel to. 

Most importantly, however, the stack reminds me that there are people for whom excuses are not an option, for whom the daily grind is insufficient to rob them of the determination and compulsion to write so that I can read their tales.

Even if I do not partake in any reading challenges this year or join a book club, I will read more. I will celebrate every moment spent reading. I will not allow TBR pile anxiety to derail me. And lastly, I will remember why I fell in love with reading in the first place.

Intrepidly,