Some days I wake up in the morning and tell myself, that today, I’ll do it. I’ll be productive. I will finally get to reading the books I told myself I was planning on reading.

I look at them. They stare back at me. With their perfect spines, their unread words, their all encompassing beauty. I look away. I don’t want them to see my shame. I don’t want them to see my guilt. But it’s always there, lingering, in the back of my mind.

When I was 13, reading was natural. It was just something that I did, I didn’t think about it. I yearned to go to Liberty Books, the main bookstore in Karachi. I would wait to get home from school just to finish reading whatever book I was at the time. It was a compulsive need, and desire.

When I was 21, it became harder. I was studying Literature and Creative Writing in university. That involved a lot of reading. Reading became necessary then. It wasn’t about pleasure. It wasn’t about taking a break. I had to read those 300 pages for Monday, I had to read that novel before spring break. That’s just how it was. I was drowning in Chaucer and Milton, in words that were so far from my own. It wasn’t easy. But it wasn’t supposed to be. However, even at that age, I would find that one odd weekend to just lie down, unwind and read something that I had primarily chosen for myself. Something that didn’t have a cause and effect, something that I wouldn’t be tested on.

I go upstairs to my loft, which I had high hopes of turning into a library. It’s filled with boxes of books. There is one lone shelf, filled with my grandfather’s books. Sometimes, I run my hands across them while passing by to feel a connection to him. Sometimes, I open them and read the annotations he had made. I run my fingers over the yellowed pages and smudged words, over dates I never lived through, over a vernacular that faded with the passing of time.

Living in a city that thrives on movement makes it difficult to slow down. Maybe that’s why I find it so hard to take a break. Maybe that’s why I’m more keen on Netflix, because at least with that, I can still carry on with my day. My world does not stop spinning with Netflix and yet I still rely upon it. I crave it like I once craved reading. 

As I write this, I breathe. One. Two. Three. Maybe today I will finally read a book.