When Books Start Talking to You, You Know It’s Time

And by that, I mean it’s time for me to be honest with myself and with you.

I’m overwhelmed. I’m exhausted. I can’t keep up. I don’t know what I’m doing anymore.

I’ve been buried in everything that is my life for so long that it feels easier to just chug along and keep pushing through. But the universe has been sending me messages lately, messages I’ve just been brushing off. It literally took a book screaming at me to write this, to make this move.

Books are an important part of my life. They take me places, introduce me to new people. They teach me something new. They reinforce things I’ve already learned. They fire my imagination. They become the lullabies I need to lull me to sleep on those restless nights. Sometimes they even tell me about the world, and guide me in what I should do.

Sometimes they tell me about me.

I don’t mean that I find myself in a story or in a character. I’m a shy, introverted mousy girl (I may be in my early thirties, but I look like a teenager, so can’t shake the idea that I’m a girl. Please just go with it.) who tries her hardest to blend into the background and stare into corners and who can’t make rational conversation with anyone. So, yeah, I never find myself in a character or a story. People my age are supposed to be able to talk to people without sounding weird. Or so the books say.

What I mean is that books sometimes fall into my hands at just the right time. They give me the message I need and it finally sparks something in my brain, makes the jumbled pieces finally fall into place. I mean, it’s hard to ignore a book when it says everything I’ve been kind of, sort of, thinking and feeling for a while. It’s hard to ignore the words staring at me, the suddenly rapidly beating heart because it feels like the book is talking to me.

I’m writing this now because it just so happens that I just finished the book that all but screamed at me. Honey Girl by Morgan Rogers. It won’t be published until late February, but I’m participating in Harlequin’s book blog tour for it, so decided to hop on it as soon as I received confirmation that I was a participant.

At the exact same time, an insane sort of exhaustion came over me. Too many little disasters and complications started happening at the same time with everyone I live with (including the cat) while everything blog-related continued to merrily chug along and it’s all simply become a little too much.

So Honey Girl started talking to me through the two main characters, Grace and Yuki. Grace has been rushing headlong for 11 years to complete a Ph.D. her father doesn’t approve of and now finds barriers and walls in her way because she’s a woman of color. She’s lost, exhausted, and in desperate need to take care of herself. Yuki is a woman Grace married during a drunken night in Vegas. A waitress by day, she hosts a late night radio show in NYC where she talks about monsters and scary stories before looping it back to a commentary on life.

This book spoke to me, screamed at me, bundled up the truth of me and tossed it back at me.

So, what does this mean?

It means I need a break. I need to curl up in my introvert cocoon and stop splitting my focus so much. It means I need to just breathe out and simplify my to-do list. I’m retreating back behind the scenes, keeping quiet, quieting my mind and life, and listening for the plan the universe intends for me. (And, really, digging into the pile of books I’ve accidentally buried myself under – AKA my March book blogging schedule. Seriously, I can’t even bring myself to look at it.)

I’m not due for an actual blogging break until March, so posts will continue to post. In my mind, I keep getting the image of a blog that mysteriously continues to be populated and there’s a ghost in there somewhere. I’ll still be reading blogs, still liking and maybe even leaving a comment here and there. But I’m taking the introvert thing seriously. Interacting even on this online platform where I don’t actually need to talk to anyone is still exhausting. I need a break from chatting with people, whether it’s on their blogs or my own. I’ll definitely still be actively reading, though.

Thanks for reading! And thanks, universe, for the right book at the right time.