I am currently reading two books at the same time. Well… really three because yesterday Amazon was having a sale on Dick Gregory’s Natural Diet for Folk Who Eat and I bought it with the intent of having it on reserve, but I’ve already read through the first chapter. I am somewhere into chapter four of Daring Greatly by Brene Brown, a book I should have read a while ago, but am only just now getting to for a book club. This book club that may never actually become a book club because none of us seem to be able to find a clear moment in our current schedules. You should read my latest texts to Robin about planning an OKC visit. My inability to nail down some dates for that trip was embarrassing. The third book, which I’m only five pages into, is Michael Pollan’s This Is Your Mind on Plants. I actually picked this one up for research purposes and should be setting the other two books aside for this week because I have plans.

I’m just going to leave that last sentence openly vague.

It kind of feels like I’m back in college because I am usually not a person that reads more than one book at a time. I must finish the book, no matter how terrible of a read, before I can pick up a new book. This has always been my reading method with the exception of college. Then I would be reading multiple books at a time, but not fun books. In fact I didn’t read any fun books between 1997 and 2000. As soon as I turned in my final revision of my master’s thesis, I started devouring books. I was going through books so quickly that Chris had to put me on a book budget. He was all “look, I love books too and I love that you love books, but we need to pay the light bill.” After Chris died, I couldn’t even get through a magazine let alone a whole book for at least a couple of years. It was like I had to teach myself to read again. I am nowhere near the devouring book level that I was before Chris’s death, but I am reading and finishing books again. Though still mostly reading and finishing one at a time. Three books at a time is not my normal.

I think what’s happening here is that I am putting myself back in school in a sense. I am majoring in the Inner Workings of Cindy. I did not necessarily pick these three books up for pleasure, not that I don’t enjoy reading them. It’s just that they are kind of serious, need to be studied kind of books. I am already regretting that I bought the digital copy of Daring Greatly because I want to put sticky note tabs in places and write in the margins. Because of course, if I am ‘going back to school’, I want to be the valedictorian. I probably need to add The Gifts of Imperfection to my reading list while I’m at it. The truth is that I have put myself back into the classroom because I am craving (and probably in need of) some internal changes. It’s all part of that making space for myself thing I’ve got going. Cleaning out my closet and my brain.

Maybe I’ll write a post some day about openly vague sentences.