The end of each year always brings to the forefront the ability we all have within us to be better humans, whether for ourselves or for others. My goal always is to be a better daughter, sister, aunt and friend to those who fall into those categories in my life. I also plan on working out more, eating better, writing more, drinking less and spending less.
The last one brings me to this. I am on a self-implemented book buying ban for 2020. Something to know about me- when I’m sad, I treat myself by buying things for myself. In the past this has left me with a lot of shoes, a lot of loungewear and a lot of a lot of things if I am being honest.
In 2019 this sadness purchasing manifested itself in the form of books. Some of them were used, some of them were 99 cents on Amazon, but buying is still buying and I bought. A lot.
Personally, I can directly correlate this insanely long TBR list to sadness, loneliness and worthlessness. So as I stepped into 2020 and was committing to being better I had to address that the library I accumulated was a visible manifestation of all my hurts and inadequacies. So seeing a full library on my Kindle and in the extra room actually is very painful for me to view.
So when I say I am reading my shelf this year it means more than just decluttering to me. I’m unburdening.
I have to be realistic about my numbers though. It’s easy to quantify my ebooks because the numbers are clearly visible- on my Kindle I have around 1100 books. Physical books (I haven’t counted in a while) is lingering around 1000. If you are doing the math, this amounts to A LOT of books. More books than I can even read. This makes me feel like a huge failure, and welp… here’s the sad/failure feelings again. *picture of me fighting off the urge to buy more things to supplement that sadness*
This is a hard admission to make. It’s more vulnerable than I’m generally willing to be, but I think that part of the healing of this is to admit that there is a problem.
My name is Katie, and I have a sadness problem, which has led me to having a book hoarding problem.
This isn’t bookstagram charming. This is real.
Follow my reading journey.
So far I have read 4 books this year, all out of my TBR pile. So that’s a start.
booknerdcred 