A lot of changes happen throughout the years of transitioning from childhood to adulthood. You go through puberty, you start driving cars instead of playing with them and your capes turn into ordinary blankets again. Another thing that happens in the transition from childhood to adulthood is that you begin to read for different reasons, and, sadly, the only thing your parents read to you is your great aunt's Facebook status. The nights of bedtime stories spent with the latest adventure story disappear and are replaced with nights of all night study sessions with the latest $200 text book or 'self-help' literature. Sadly, at least for me, reading seems to have changed.
The other day I walked into Barnes & Noble with the goal of coming out with a book to read that was "fun," and frankly, I had no idea where to even start looking. For as long as I can remember (or at least for the last six years of my life), all that I've seemed to have read have been theology books, books on faith or text books. I honestly couldn't remember reading anything for fun since my high school days, and the only author I could remember was J.K. Rowling (if she started writing again, all my book problems would be solved, but alas she has not). It was a seriously weird realization for me. All the fun books and authors I used to know were in the teenager section, and I knew I didn't want find myself pouring over another angsty-teen novel at age 24, so I headed for the adult fiction section and hoped for the best.
Hope was lost.
I felt like I was looking for Waldo in the Candy Cane Forest. I couldn't find anything, and I had no idea where to even start. I mean, Barnes & Noble has like a bazillion books, and not all of which, I'm assuming, are good. Therefore, I got overwhelmed, shuffled my feet out the door and left, book-less.
It was as I was walking out the door that I came to the sad realization that I have forgotten how to read for fun. It's kind of like that feeling a competitive swimming has when all of his or her friends want to go hang out by the pool in the summer and 'swim.' The only thing that 'swim' means to you is swimming laps, and your friends definitely aren't going to be doing that, so you're left wondering, "How does one just 'go swimming' without swimming 1,200 meters?"
Realizing I'd forgotten how to read for fun really irritated me and left me feeling even less like a kid. Sure, I could've gone into the bookstore's fiction section and grabbed anything written by Charles Dickens or Mark Twain and been fine, but there was just something empty feeling about walking into a bookstore with literally zero idea of any authors or creative stories to pick up. I miss the days of having a list of books to get through throughout the school year and reading stories because they're stories, not just because they contain loads of knowledge. There are lots of creative minds and creative works out there ready to by read; I was just at a loss for how to find them.
Like most instances when I'm at a loss, I told a couple of friends about the problem I was having, and two short days later, I had a list of five 'fun' books to check out, the location of the nearest public library and a copy of a book called, "This is a Book," (fun title, right?) in my hand. So, if you're like me and at a loss for what to read or how to read for fun as you've gotten older, here's a simple solution: Ask a friend for help. Odds are, not everyone you know has forgotten the secret art of reading for reading's sake. As Reading Rainbow once said, "Take a look; It's in a book."
-Cliff
Cliff's Note: Reading doesn't have to be all about theology, knowledge and textbooks. It can be fun, no matter how old you get.
