The Library

With our new season of life, we have committed to a stricter budget to allow for financial freedom down the road. I am just as much the enforcer as the enforced in this venture and so I am learning the art of compromise now more than ever. One way I have committed to saving money is getting a library card.I am an inhaler of literature. I love books - the way they smell, the way they feel, the stories they share. I love the act of reading an actual, physical book and this is often my financial downfall - I am an epic purchaser. Every book I even remotely think of reading, I was in the habit of purchasing. I love my books. But for now, I need to retreat to using the local library for indulging in my reading pleasure.I'm learning lessons from the library and this season of life that remind me that there are lots of good things out there and lots of ways to enjoy those good things. This will look different for everyone. And sometimes we're called to pivot and change how we experience life and the good things we have. It doesn't make them less good. It just makes them different.So rather than lament that I can no longer underline and draw in the books that I'm reading, I'm learning to enjoy reading in a new way -- fully present, fully immersed, with no agenda other than pouring over the words and letting what sticks stick and what falls away fall away. Reading without an agenda or underlining feels foreign to me. And while this new style of reading rented books is different, it has been so sweet to learn a new way of enjoying something good.