I used to inhale books and words like they were a half-priced Dairy Queen cookies ‘n cream Blizzard on a Friday after school.

Now, I have a growing stack of books along my dresser that have one term doomed upon their brand-new, glossy covers: unread. I can’t pinpoint exactly when my love of reading got overtaken by a significant lack of time; but I do know that it is not something that only I am struggling with. My friends who I used to read books with, namely the Harry Potter series, never have time to talk with me about the wonderful wizarding world or converse with me in an extensive vocabulary- which brings up another problem with my lack of time to read; my vocabulary, once constantly growing, is suffering. As I write this, I have a tab with thesaurus.com open because quite frankly, my mind is so frazzled with all the things I have to remember to get me through the day that I can’t remember a synonym for something so simple as the word “frustration.” (My synonym for this word is disgruntlement. I am disgruntled.)

Maybe it was the homework increase, maybe it was the nightly Netflix binge-watching I partake in on the weekends, maybe it was the required-reading for English class, maybe it was the many extracurricular activities I said yes to in pursuit of being a “well rounded student.” While these things aren’t necessarily bad, they all dampened my thirst for new characters to befriend, new words to be learned, new worlds to discover. Of course- I still have the fiery desire in the back of my mind to pick up one of my unloved books and soak in all of its wonders.

Recently, this desire has grown stronger as I have become busier and busier. After school every day, I can hear the books calling my name as I practice piano, do my homework, or cook dinner. As my appetite to leisure read increases, I know that one day I will pick up a book at 10 p.m. and read it until 2 a.m. when my mind turns foggy and my thirst is quenched. But these spurts of reading are few and far in between; and while I eagerly await each one- it just isn’t enough. If I could, I would make a class where one could just go sit outside in the courtyard and read. Of course; this dream is impossible. So I will settle with my suffering relationship with reading until Thanksgiving break comes; in which I will read and read and read and absorb all the books I can to last me a little bit longer.