Back, Back, Back

So this is how I used to spend my summers, before recent years, before a driver's license and before a social life. This answers my question as to how I used to read so much when I was younger - I didn't have much else to do. That was before the internet was huge, before facebook, before I actually cared how I spent three months of summer instead of just going with the flow. I just read and read and read and because of it I always have a hard time finding any book to just pick up and read in this house that I haven't already read. It's funny because that way of life is still in me - it's the reason I'm such an introvert, the reason I can write decently and why I use words the way I do. Now it feels like I'm wasting time, reading while I should be doing something else like working out or being somewhere with friends.

But it's that driving thing too that makes me feel guilty about reading for a few hours. Now I can go where I need to and don't have to wait for my parents to be available to drive me someplace. That is much more a blessing than a curse, but it still commits me to certain things. I'm always committed to the temptation to just drive, which is satsifying yet always unfulfilling, because I return home trying to think of another reason to leave again. I didn't used to think like that - it was just about the next minute I would have to get a little deeper into the novel I'd started two days ago and was almost done with. And now I feel guilty about that, because what happens in the book isn't real and I shouldn't allow myself to escape into something that doesn't exist. Since when did logic take so much fun out of life?

Granted, I also feel guilty for letting myself climb back inside of late. Why does it matter so much if I haven't seen friends in two days? It doesn't, but I feel like I'm avoiding some responsibility or something. Since when did being with friends become a responsibility? I know that I SHOULD be with people instead of book characters, but whatever. Book characters do it for me at the moment. I know you're thinking that I'm going to be like this for a week and then go nuts because I feel lonely, and that's probably true, but there's a reason I keep repeating that pattern. Maybe this is something that won't change about me, ever.