I miss my books. I miss having them around. I miss the option of picking up a book and starting a new story. Or picking up an old favorite and leafing through the pages to reread my favorite part. I know I have too many books, especially for such a small space… and when the moving van finally arrives in California, I honestly have no idea where they will fit. But I still miss their comforting physical presence.
I have two books right now: Boundaries in Marriage, by Henry Cloud and John Townsend, and The Annotated Sense and Sensibility, edited by David Shapard. And my Kindle. But I just haven’t been reading much. I think I am still unwinding from my recent anxiety. I am breathing easier and sleeping better and dreaming nothing at all. Which is a wonderful departure from my pre-move existence, which mostly consisted of phantom to-do lists and restless nights and always, always feeling like something hanging over my head was about to drop at any second. So although I am feeling much more relaxed, I still have not quite unwound enough to read again.
Maybe it is because I am still living out of a suitcase, with my makeup and medicines and other necessities set up on a cardboard box.

Maybe it is because I eat, sleep, sit, and lounge on a blow-up mattress because there are no tables or chairs in the apartment yet.
Maybe it is because I wake up each morning and don’t quite want to face the day, because I know it will be full of new things that I will have to navigate and figure out and accept as part of my new life. But all these “maybes” are temporary.
One day—maybe a couple of months from now, maybe a year from now—I will wake up and this place will feel like home. But I know I can’t wait until then to start reading again. So maybe—just maybe—I will venture out today with my book and find a nice, quiet coffee shop to spend a few hours remembering the joy of reading.
Moving is hard, and I can’t even IMAGINE moving to a new place and not at least having my stuff with me. It took us a year or so before we actually started feeling “at home” in Metairie. We’ve been here just over two years now, and it feels pretty homey; the hardest part for us is being away from our families. You’ll get there though, I promise! And at least you have some awesome touristy things to do in your beautiful new city!
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I pray for that day when you can read as you love to do… But the moving van is set to come, and so I pray for this day too.
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