A Need to Read

The truth is I have this need to read books. I'm floundering pretty hard here with looking for a job, and filling my days in ways that don't take money and also make me feel like I'm living a meaningful life and being productive. One of those ways would be reading. The problem is that reading is something I do when I'm content. When life is going well I read voraciously. New book every other day at work or school. Getting stuff done while also having time to devour new ideas, new worlds, new characters or simply revisiting old ones.

But instead of reading the hundreds of books I own, tens of which I've never read, or tracking down any number of others on my "to read" list, I find myself in a Netflix spiral. I'm watching The X-files and playing Candy Crush or Sudoku on my phone. Never devoting my full attention to either, perhaps with a crappy magazine open as well. Anything to avoid thinking about what I should really be doing. The mattress pad is falling off my bed (it's a queen sized pad living on a twin sized bed so it slides off periodically) but do I fix it? No. My hair is a mess from the last time I washed it but do I fix it? No. There's infinite ways to spend my time that would be more productive than what I'm doing. But it's so hard to do anything.

It sounds dire, I know. I'm depressed. I'm anxious. I'm not at risk.

It's unpleasant. It's demoralizing. It's frustrating. It's not the end of my world. I just know that the longer I remain un-useful, un-contributory, un-living, the worse this is going to press on me. Already I'm feeling aches and pains that remind me of how motionless I am. My sciatica or psuedo-sciatica (I don't really care, both suck) is here. It makes it hard to sit, hard to stand, hard to recline, hard to move. I want to stretch, doesn't help. I want to sleep, doesn't help.

"Give me an occupation, Miss Dashwood, or I shall run mad."

Truer words were never spoken.

But back to my original point. I feel like maybe if I can pull myself into reading something I can draw myself out of this funk. Do I read because I'm happy? Or am I happy because I read? I've got book club in a week and a half and I haven't finished the book from last month. I did read Ella Enchanted last month. That's something.

I don't know if I should even publish this.

While I have every reason to be feeling this way with where I am in my life, I'm also exploring the possibility that my thyroid may be out of whack and could be a major contributing factor. It feels weird to say that I hope I have hypothyroidism. But it would explain so much of my life. I don't know which to hope for. Normal? Low? Preferably not Hashimoto's, that much I know.