A TBR Pile As An Aesthetic Choice

This is not the same brain that read through Gone With the Wind in a week in middle school. It's definitely not the same brain that won Accelerated Reading awards at the end of every year in elementary school. I can barely read exit signs on the highway now.

Despite this, I routinely manage to convince myself that life hasn't ruthlessly ground me down a cheese grater, and believe that I can easily read through books that catch my eye with ease. And, subsequently, I am smacked with the reality of my compromised attention span and niggling lack of energy.

All this to say, my TBR (To Be Read) list is a growing shame upon my honor.

There's like . . . eight books on that TBR list. 14 year-old me would be absolutely disgusted, but 14 year-old me also thought it was a great idea to spend money on Sarah Dessen so she can fuck all the way off. Little moody shit.

Anyway! Never think for a moment it's because I changed my mind about reading these books- working full time with only scant few hours, relative to the working week, of relaxation leaves tearing through my TBR pile a sort of low priority. But, inexplicably, devouring hours worth of fanfiction is easier??? To be fair though, a lot of fanfiction writers have been a surer bet for great stories than a lot of books in stores. So maybe I struggle to read books I've bought because, subconsciously, I fear disappointment when my money was sacrificed to it and at least with free fanfiction I can just backspace out and scour through hundreds of other fanfics and fine twenty other fantastic ones?

Or maybe I've lost my zest for the things I used to love. Most likely a combination of the two. Whatever. So, I've got a list of books to read and, no matter how anxious looking at that untouched pile cane make me a little disappointed in myself, I just don't pick any of them up. It can take me months (in one case even years) to finally go through one book. For many years in my early twenties, about when this problem was just blooming into a thorny weed in my side, I was so anxious about what this could symbolize in my mental and emotional health. How could I lose the one love I've harbored since first beginning to read? Wasn't this a sign of a significant and potentially damaging downturn in my very self? Every time I thought about my TBR list I would spiral, because for so much of my childhood reading defined who I was. I was the bookworm of the family! The girl with a collection of trophies for A.R. goal smashing (anybody else remember that school program, or had something similar?). The girl who begged for Barnes and Noble gift cards for birthdays and Christmases. It seemed for a long while, too, that being an avid reader was one of my few redeeming qualities as a sullen and lazy teenager.

To have that suddenly leave me, as if water rushing from a sieve . . . I couldn't understand the loss that came upon me in oscillations. When did the love for reading start leaving me, and how could I have prevented it . . . such were the type of thoughts badgering me when I could lift myself out of the stupor of failure and inadequacy those first few years post college graduation.

I understand my dramatics. Coming to realize how starkly you've changed can be a shock. Having the one thing you knew you were good at crap out on you is even harder. It took me some time to come to grips with this . . .

But you know what? I came to the realization that I had to redefine my TBR list. The reason I felt disappointment upon seeing the pile was because I felt like I had to be ashamed. It was, in my mind, wasteful to buy books that I didn't intend to read within the week- and then have the audacity to buy more books on top of that too!

So I had to do some romanticizing of my TBR pile. I took a watercolor palette to it, and like a Ghibli film, gently brush over the harsh shadows with powdery pastels and rich mellow hues. The colors of a blazing sunset and a pearlescent dusk. Instead of keeping the unread books in a solitary pile I peppered them around my IKEA bookshelf, in the little category shelves they would be homed in after finally reading, put right on top of the other books rather than slotted in. A reminder that they were still unread, but that they belonged there nevertheless.

I like having a pile of books that have yet been "undiscovered". These small little journeys of unexplored delights and unearthed gems of thought wrapped in earthy sentiment. I like knowing that there is something new to do when I finally feel the energy and hours of free time. I like the knowledge that I'll get there eventually, and the time past will make the journey sweeter.

It's weird to say that I consider my TBR pile an . . . it's not an accomplishment, exactly?

The TBR pile is my dragon's cave. A hoard of glittering spoils, rich and of the most value to myself. And I love to collect more.