Morning Musing on Reading ‘Til You Overheat With Emotion
Luvlies, Good morning. Hope you had a great start to the holiday season. I stayed home and read all that I could, because my spirit needed it. There is something to unpack if a person reads a book a day. Apparently my reading habit – which formed in childhood – is a trauma response, but I say hogwash. I love reading because I’m obsessed with people, their stories and the way stories are told. Plus being an only child, who spent hours alone observing the world around her, is not as horrible as people make it out to be.
I learned about friendships and empathy through the Babysitter’s Club series. I learned about white nonsense from Flowers in the Attic and Sweet Valley High. I was such an avid reader, that I won Scholastic Book contests a lot, and was featured in their magazine a couple of times (10 points if you can find a copy). I thought Karl Marx was my grandpa from pics and books that were lying around, and as background music I listened to Cornelius Cardew’s cassette recordings that he gave my mother… that’s another story for another day folks. I’m definitely chatting with my therapist about that next week.
Staying at home to connect with my mind was what I craved this holiday weekend (because the parties would be lame anyway). I picked up Fredrik Backman’s My Friends to read with my eyes… which was a mistake.
Basically I read, cried, laughed, ugly cried some more and just needed a moment to lie down and eat cold treats. My eyes were swollen shut, my face puffy, and I was over heating from the emotional roller coaster that this book took me on… and I have no one to talk to about it.
And so what if I’m a year late chatting about this book; it found me when it needed to. It starts with a blubbering bang of spectrum shit, and I was like ‘Let’s GOOOOO!‘. My Friends is the embodiment of ‘never-judge-a-book-by-its-cover’ when it comes to anyone who crosses your path.
Working through this story, I found myself feeling nostalgic for my pre-instagram friends and friendships. The ones who were crazy and brilliant and broken, yet alive with a capital ‘L’. The friend who pee’d in the coffee of her modelling agent for pissing her off, but then you’d side-eye her when she surprised you with a warm beverage out of the blue. The way Louisa tries to ‘help’ Ted appear more dangerous, so he can be desirable to the cute train conductor had me in stitches.
In it, there is violence. People attempting to physically beat the differences out of one another. There’s neglect which illuminates how young people are an unprotected class. There’s plotting and revenge that burns out in youth. But strongest of all, is the humanity that each character in the story has. Even the villains have round, full shapes.
My Friends reminds its reader to meet people with patience, curiosity and love, because you never know what kind of life someone is living when your paths intersect.
…and that’s time. Still here? Leave your thoughts down below.
Back later Luvlies!
xoxo Luv Laney Luv
*psst… Don’t forget to like and subscribe to my youtube channel and Patreon.
Morning Musing is a pomodoro-timed, free thought experiment to get back into the swing of things. No Ai added.
