Would You Love to Read?

Would You Love to Read?

Whenever I pick up a book, I barely make it past three or four pages.

Not because I don’t want to read… but because I start to doze off.

It’s strange, because I remember a different version of myself. A few years ago, I used to love reading in a way that felt almost obsessive. I would carry books everywhere. I would hide them in places I shouldn’t even be reading. Sometimes, I would even go out of my way, crossing lines I probably shouldn’t admit just to get my hands on a book I wanted badly enough.

Back then, reading wasn’t something I tried to do.

It was something I couldn’t stop myself from doing.

I would get lost in stories for hours. Entire afternoons would disappear without me noticing. I didn’t need motivation. I didn’t need discipline. I just needed a book, and I was gone.

But now…

Now it feels different.

Now I open a book, and after a few pages, my eyes start to feel heavy. My focus slips. My mind drifts. Sometimes I don’t even remember when I stopped reading and started thinking about something else entirely.

And I close the book not because I’m satisfied, but because I’m tired.

That part confuses me the most.

How do you go from stealing time to read… to struggling to stay awake after a few pages?

I used to think maybe I just outgrew reading.

But that doesn’t feel true.

Because every now and then, I still catch glimpses of that old feeling. A paragraph that pulls me in unexpectedly. A sentence that wakes something up in me for a moment. And for a brief second, I remember what it used to feel like to disappear into words.

Then it fades again.

And I’m back to the same cycle: start, drift, sleep, stop.

It makes me wonder if it’s not reading that changed…

but me.

Not in a dramatic way. Not like I became someone else overnight.

More like I slowly got scattered. Pulled in too many directions. Trained to jump from one thing to another before anything has time to settle.

Now silence feels heavy.

Stillness feels like sleep.

Even something I once loved deeply struggles to hold me anymore.

And that’s the part I don’t say out loud often.

Because it’s easier to say “I’m busy” or “I’m tired” than to admit that my attention just doesn’t stay the way it used to.

But I miss it.

I miss being the kind of person who could open a book and vanish into it.

No effort. No struggle. No fighting sleep after three pages.

Just… presence.

Maybe that’s what I’m really trying to find again.

Not just the habit of reading.

But the version of me that could stay.

Book Image (Pinterest)