Love and Other Drugs (Pt.2)

 

I read too much.

I have tried starting my blog several times with that. Reading is my chosen drug. My guilty little pleasure, along with food.

I read too much. Not a lot, but too much. I don’t read to enlighten the mind. I don’t read for literary entertainment. I do not read to know or be aware. I read to escape.

I do not have much of a life if I compare my life with that of people my age. I don’t go to parties. I never went on any night-outs. I never drink (except for red wine). I never shopped except for essential stuff (meaning books). I never leave home on weekends except for school and lately, church or SFC activities. I never went places except for work-related seminars and trainings (and I never ventured out of the venue, not in Baguio, certainly not in Tagaytay or in Manila (except for that expensive dinner with our City’s first lady) although several concerned souls dragged me around Cebu twice or thrice).

I guess when you don’t have much experience, you compensate somewhere. I compensate by reading a lot. If I can say vicarious living is experience, I would say I have been through a lot of scandalous reading material to offer me one lifetime of experience over people my age. I know stuff I am not supposed to know and I am aware of things women my age and my background and upbringing should not know about.

My teachers used to warn Nanay about the reading materials I pore over during school breaks. I hated them for ruining my enjoyment of a spicy historical romance novel and because of their reaction, I would often raise up my books covered with scantily dressed couples cavorting on lush, verdant, forest-like backgrounds, just to irritate them.

But my teachers were right. I have become addicted to these books. Whenever I am upset, I read. Whenever I am worried, scared, troubled, I read. If I do not read, I eat. Sometimes,I wish Nanay carefully monitored what I was reading all those years ago. (If I get married and have a daughter, my daughter will be reading books on my lap!).

Reading is so much easier than praying.

Reading does not bring your problems and your helplessness to mind. Reading let’s you cover up your scars, and your fears. It let’s you forget the troubles you have. It let’s you escape.

Praying reminds you of your helplessness, your powerlessness, your lack of control and your ignorance. It points out how little control you have over everything. It reminds you how human you are… how much dependent your are on God.

Reading takes away that sense of dependence. It makes you feel a false sense of being powerful and in control because you can read anytime you please. You can even skip to the back portion and know the story before hand.

But reading just makes you feel more confused, more unhappy. It binds you in its endless, utter hopeless spiral of reading and reading more to numb you from everything else.

Praying is freeing. After a long, open-hearted and honest moment of prayer, you would feel refreshed, comforted, assured. You can leave all your worries in His hands because You have been assured that He cares, He loves, and He is involved in your life and that He wants what is best for you.

Reading leaves you hopeless, more desperate and bound by the need to read more books. But prayer let’s you live. Truly live.

I know I don’t treat reading in it’s proper context and I don’t resort to prayer when I am so upset and troubled that I can barely think. I can pray when everything is okay but when sorrow, fear, pain and disappointment drowns my heart, I resort to reading.

Reading has brought me a lot of trouble. Sometimes, I wish I don’t know that much or that I can erase certain stuff, images and scenes I have stored in my head. But I can’t.

I should remember however that the love of reading is God’s gift too. But if I abuse it, it would be the devil’s tool.

Lord, teach me to use reading in good, helpful and Godly ways. Remind me that in every book I read, You are always looking over my shoulders. Lead me to good books that would nourish my soul and my heart and not just titillate my senses.

A quote from Macrina Wiederkehr, OSB comes to mind:

God is the sustaining presence that is our inheritance, our greatest good, our refuge in times of trouble. When we court other gods, the troubles in our lives tend to increase.