Life is the Joyful Moment of Finding Your Next Book to Read

I live for the joy of finishing a book and carefully–with utmost intention–choosing what to read next.

And I wonder why this is. And why I don’t feel this way for all aspects of life in which one thing ends and another begins.

Sometimes, yes, I feel sad, as if I’m losing a part of my life when I finish a book, especially the ones in which I feel the deepest connections. But, eventually, I get excited to choose my next read.

I naturally assume that I’ll become attached to this book and its characters too. Even if I feel a bit of longing for my last book, I can never wait to open the first page of the next. I derive a pure and simple pleasure from the anticipation of a future with a book full of ideas I have yet to explore.

Maybe this is how I should feel about relationships too. And career changes. And growing older and having different interests and responsibilities.

It’s a simple concept: life is constantly changing. We are ever morphing into a future self that we never quite reach, and then we die.

So, until then, why not feel joy and excitement at moving through life and experiencing all its parts?

(Side note: I chose the above painting, Irmingland Hall, Norfolk, by Miles Edmund Cotman for this post because it reminds me of one of my favorite books, Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay. I have read it twice, and each experience was different. I was a different person between each reading. When I read it a third time, I may not love it quite the same, but my fondness will remain. In the end, it is a book that comes and goes like all others.)