2019: No Dalmatians, just 101 books

These yearly book recaps usually write themselves, but I struggled getting this one out. Because 2019 was a very gray year for me: drab, disappointing, creatively draining.

Which is the perfect set-up for a good reading year, really. When you can't catch a break, a book is the perfect break from reality. When you can't create, you consume. Books are my preferred coping mechanism for life, and I bring them along for all the good times too, so books and I got a lot of face time this year. Enough to break all my reading records.

And because I'm not enough of a book nerd already, I tracked my reading more extensively this year—so this blog includes blurry charts! I know you're all giddy with excitement.

Goal: 100

Books read: 101

A light reading month is a good indicator of a bad month. I'm looking at you, August.

Some books I whiz through, some I take my time on (Hamilton, for example, took me months to get through), so the average amount of days I spent per book—11—isn't really indicative of how long it takes me to plow through a book. Especially considering how many pages I read per day—101. If you're picturing me spending every spare second with my nose in a book, that's not what's going on here. Most of my reading happens during my treasured bedtime reading hour, leaving me plenty of time to "have a life." Like watching Netflix and stuff.


Pages read: 36,575

Average # of pages per book: 362.

I read more this year than I ever have, both in page count and book count. It was kind of an accident.

Longest book: Voyager, by Diana Gabaldon. 1,059 pages.

Shortest book: Emergency Skin, by N.K. Jemisin. 33 pages.


First reads: 87

Rereads: 14

Books not finished: 12

I'm proud of that number, though it probably should be higher. I'm still hesitant to abandon a book before I finish it because I think there's value in reading books that aren't really for you—sometimes. But that feeling when you toss aside a book you're not into? It's like dropping dead weight from your life.

Ratings

One of the best things about my Book Spreadsheet of Nerddom is that it allowed me to track my star ratings in half-star increments. Because sometimes you need to give a book 3.5 stars—simply rounding to 3 or 4 will not express your reading experience adequately.

Sadly, I did not hate any book enough this year to dole out my first 1/2 star.

Fiction vs. nonfiction

I've always been more of a fiction reader, but 24 nonfiction books isn't too shabby.

Male vs. female

I don't make an effort to read male or female, so it's always interesting to me to see what the numbers say in this category. Women won this year.

Where all these books came from

This was my favorite stat to track. It looks like I bought a lot of books this year, but this was a frugal book-buying year for me. A lot of those were rereads of books I've owned a while, and—this is the miraculous part—I actually made it to the bottom of my TBR (to be read) pile on my nightstand. Some of those books have been collecting dust for years, and before Christmas that spot was empty for a month. Super weird. Must buy more books.

I need to give a plug for libraries, too. The simple concept of enjoying a service without any money being exchanged doesn't happen much in this money-driven world, which is what makes libraries so great. Not all library systems are as great as Salt Lake County's (I am now a paying library-card carrier because SLC's system is a bajillion times better than northern Utah County's), but all libraries are doing a tremendous public service.


Favorite book, fiction: Circe, by Madeline Miller. This is one of those books that left me a little speechless; I loved the book, but, even months after finishing it, I'm not sure what to say about it. All I know is that it checks all my boxes for an excellent book: great writing, great characters, great story.

Favorite book, nonfiction: A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail, by Bill Bryson. My third Bill Bryson book, and probably his most famous. Bryson writes the kind of nonfiction I wish I could write: funny, informative, thought-provoking. He can do no wrong as far as I'm concerned.

Favorite reread: Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott. I didn't like this book the first time I attempted it. Or the second. It wasn't until after I graduated from college that this book finally spoke to me, and rereading it this year only made it more dear to me. It's one of the most intensely relatable books I've ever read and had me crying my eyes out several times. This book gets me.


If you've followed my book recaps in the past, you'll notice some new categories below. Some weird themes emerged in my reading this year, so I decided to highlight some of those rather than stick to my usual categories.

Libraries: You can take the book out of the library, but you can't take the library out of the book. That's my 2019 reading year in a nutshell. There were libraries that were portals to alternate realities, libraries that were evil, libraries that were forbidden. Books were stolen from libraries, long journeys were made to libraries, and the history of libraries was told.

But one of my favorite library stories came from Jojo Moyes' The Giver of Stars. Set in Kentucky prior to World War II, five women travel on horseback to deliver library books to residents living in remote areas. Because a library is more than a source of free books. Knowledge is power, and libraries are the great equalizers in the pursuit of knowledge.

18th/19th century: If I wasn't happily trapped in a library, chances are I was transported to the 18th or 19th century. For a while there it felt like I was taking a course on early American history, with texts ranging from David McCullough's 1776 to book 4 of Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series to Octavia Butler's Kindred.

I finally took a ride on the Hamilton bandwagon as well, soldiering through Ron Chernow's massive biography that inspired the musical (still haven't listened to the soundtrack, though—sorry, Hamilton fans). Learning about Alexander Hamilton made me want to learn more about his wife, Eliza, which led me to My Dear Hamilton: A Novel of Eliza Schuyler Hamilton by Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie. I love American history, and this book brought the American revolution to life better than anything else I've read. Those who framed our constitution were actually living the "let's invent our own government" game. It wasn't a class assignment or a hypothetical debate. It was real life. They would face very real consequences if they failed. Seeing the revolution play out through Eliza's eyes—a woman who knew 16 of the U.S. presidents—makes what the American experiment became seem all the more miraculous. America should not have become the great nation it is today. But it did. Despite the country's problems, we still have so much to be proud of, so much that's worth fighting for.

Weird diseases: Yep, this was a real thing this year, probably because I read a lot more sci-fi than normal (including eight Orson Scott Card books—there's some weird stuff going on in the Enderverse). But my favorite veered more on the dystopian side of the scale: Karen Thompson Walker's The Age of Miracles. The rotation of the earth starts to slow down, slowly elongating the 24-hour day Earth has provided so faithfully, causing lots of social, economic, and physical ramifications. Really cool concept, and very well written. Walker wrote another "weird disease" book this year that's also quite excellent: The Dreamers, about a sleeping epidemic. Loved them both.

Business/self-improvement:

This is a very general overview of the genres I read in 2019. One anomaly is the self-help/business category at a whopping 8.9%. I don't read many books in this category because they all tend to be the same, but in an effort to make some career changes I read a bunch of them. And guess what, they didn't change my life. But I did appreciate how some of them helped me get out of my head a little and see the world differently. Honorable mentions are The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People (a dumb recommendation because I think I'm the only person on the planet who hadn't already read it) and Radial Candor for those working the 9-to-5 grind.

Nerdiest book: Shady Characters: The Secret Life of Punctuation, Symbols, and Other Typographical Marks, by Keith Houston. Yes, I read a book about punctuation. And I liked it. Being an editor only enhances my interest in nerdy subjects, and this one was a really cool way to look at the small things that helped shape history.


And, that's it for this year. I read many more books that deserve a shout-out, so pay extra attention to the bolded titles below.

All the 2019 books:

1. The Last Unicorn, Peter S. Beagle
2. Behold the Sword Maiden: A Storyteller's Introduction to the Heroine's Journey, Dorothy Cleveland & Barbara Schutzgruber
3. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
4. 1776, David McCullough
5. God Is Out to Get Us: At All Costs—the Life of Abraham, Carol Bond Wagner
6. The Knockoff, Lucy Sykes
7. Harry's Trees, Jon Cohen
8. The One-in-a-Million Boy, Monica Wood
9. Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When the Stakes Are High, Kerry Patterson
10. From Tolerance to Equality: How Elites Brought America to Same-Sex Marriage, Darel E. Paul
11. Unsheltered, Barbara Kingsolver
12. Lacks Self-Control: True Stories I Waited Until My Parents Died to Tell, Roy Sekoff
13. The Winter of the Witch, Katherine Arden
14. The Age of Miracles, Karen Thompson Walker
15. The Summer Dragon, Todd Lockwood
16. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Power Lessons in Personal Change, Stephen R. Covey
17. Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine, Gail Honeyman
18. Dreyer's English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style, Benjamin Dreyer
19. I'll Be Your Blue Sky, Marisa de los Santos
20. Ghosted, Rosie Walsh
21. Saints: The Standard of Truth, 1814–1846, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
22. Homegoing, Yaa Gyasi
23. The Library Book, Susan Orlean
24. Rapunzel's Revenge, Shannon Hale
25. Radical Candor: Be a Kickass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity, Kim Scott
26. Once Upon a River, Diane Setterfield
27. The Hypnotist's Love Story, Liane Moriarty
28. Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces that Stand in the Way of True Inspiration, Ed Catmull
29. Shady Characters: The Secret Life of Punctuation, Symbols, and Other Typographical Marks, Keith Houston
30. Delicious!, Ruth Reichl
31. Major Pettigrew's Last Stand, Helen Simonson
32. Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card
33. Speaker for the Dead, Orson Scott Card
34. The Prodigal Tongue: The Love-Hate Relationship Between American and British English, Lynne Murphy
35. Xenocide, Orson Scott Card
36. Children of the Mind, Orson Scott Card
37. Logan Likes Mary Anne!, Ann M. Martin
38. Circe, Madeline Miller
39. Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead, Brené Brown
40. Why We Dream: The Transformative Power of Our Nightly Journey, Alice Robb
41. The Dreamers, Karen Thompson Walker
42. Field Notes on Love, Jennifer E. Smith
43. Let Me Lie, Clare Mackintosh
44. The Book of Dreams, Nina George
45. The Gown: A Novel of the Royal Wedding, Jennifer Robson
46. In the Night Wood, Dale Bailey
47. How Women Rise: Break the 12 Habits Holding You Back from Your Next Raise, Promotion, or Job, Sally Helgesen
48. The Accidental Beauty Queen, Teri Wilson
49. Recursion, Blake Crouch
50. Little Fires Everywhere, Celeste Ng
51. The Power of Moments: Why Certain Experiences Have Extraordinary Impact, Chip & Dan Heath
52. The Golden Hour, Beatriz Williams
53. This Must Be the Place, Maggie O'Farrell
54. The Buried: An Archaeology of the Egyptian Revolution, Peter Hessler
55. Save Me the Plums: My Gourmet Memoir, Ruth Reichl
56. Truly Madly Guilty, Liane Moriarty
57. Time After Time, Lisa Grunwald
58. Evvie Drake Starts Over, Linda Holmes
59. Voyager, Diana Gabaldon
60. Drums of Autumn, Diana Gabaldon
61. The Mother-in-Law, Sally Hepworth
62. Daughter of Smoke and Bone, Laini Taylor
63. A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail, Bill Bryson
64. The Clockmaker's Daughter, Kate Morton
65. Leven Thumps and the Gateway to Foo, Obert Skye
66. Ella Enchanted, Gail Carson Levine
67. Kindred, Octavia Butler
68. Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
69. Frankenstein, Mary Shelley
70. Alexander Hamilton, Ron Chernow
71. Me Before You, Jojo Moyes
72. After You, Jojo Moyes
73. You Have Arrived at Your Destination, Amor Towles
74. Still Me, Jojo Moyes
75. If I Could Only Tell You, Hannah Beckerman
76. Summer of the Monkeys, Wilson Rawls
77. Ender's Shadow, Orson Scott Card
78. Shadow of the Hegemon, Orson Scott Card
79. Shadow Puppets, Orson Scott Card
80. Shadow of the Giant, Orson Scott Card
81. One Plus One, Jojo Moyes
82. Summer Frost, Blake Crouch
83. Something Wicked This Way Comes, Ray Bradbury
84. I'm a Stranger Here Myself: Notes on Returning to America After 20 Years, Bill Bryson
85. Nothing to See Here, Kevin Wilson
86. The Non-Obvious Guide to Emotional Intelligence, Kerry Goyette
87. Fate of the Fallen, Kel Kade
88. The Giver of Stars, Jojo Moyes
89. My Dear Hamilton, Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie
90. The Fellowship of the Ring, J.R.R. Tolkien
91. Pawn of Prophecy, David Eddings
92. One Day in December, Josie Silver
93. Starsight, Brandon Sanderson
94. Emergency Skin, N.K. Jemison
95. The Masked City, Genevieve Cogman
96. Love Walked In, Marisa de los Santos
97. Ink and Bone, Rachel Caine
98. A Return to Christmas, Chris Heimerdinger
99. Christmas Bells, Jennifer Chiaverini
100. The Two Towers, JRR Tolkien
101. Stepsister, Jennifer Donnelly

Previous years:
2018
2017

2016
2015
2014
2013
2012

8 things to do on the beach besides read

The reading community loves to discuss beach reads: what counts as a beach read, the newest releases they're lugging to the beach, how many books they devoured on the beach. You would think it was the books that brought people to the beach, not its blue waters, white sand, and sunshine.

I had my books picked out for my Bahamas vacation weeks in advance. For me a good beach read is either a light, breezy novel (Liane Moriarty and Elin Hilderbrand come to mind) or nonfiction, preferably essays or a memoir. I had three books picked out, and they sat on my nightstand forever, taunting me with hopeful expectations.

I read those books while vacating my life, as planned, but not on the beach. Because paper is hard to preserve when you're surrounded by sand and water, and because when you spend the majority of your life in a desert, you take advantage of the novelties the beach has to offer and catch up on your reading later.

I did most of my reading from my private balcony on the cruise ship. It was glorious. (Although this book was a massive disappointment.)

The balcony is also a good place to practice your selfie skills, although it's so humid out there your camera lens will keep fogging up. Super annoying.

While reading is one of the best ways to have adventures, I found eight other ways to have fun on the islands.

Play in the water

I mean, duh. Especially if you're in a place like the Bahamas, it's too hot to do anything else, and the water is beautiful and warm and calm. Unless you're squeamish about fish swimming around your legs, there's literally no reason to stay out of the water.

Play in the sand

My family's not one for sandcastles; they usually end up being uninspired, lumpy blobs. It's much more fun to bury someone. Even as kids, it was usually Tiffany who ended up getting buried. (Sadly, I couldn't find the old picture to showcase alongside this one.)

Snorkel

Snorkeling masks are not designed for heads with hair attached. My hair got tangled in that thing more than once.

It's astonishing how much life and color is under the sea. True, the ocean is a sight to behold when you're above the water.

This multi-colored water is SO COOL.

But dip your face underwater and you literally feel like you've become an extra on the set of Finding Nemo. Provided you pick the right spot, fish are everywhere, of a variety of sizes and colors, and it's all the more astounding considering how good they are at avoiding you. If you were just treading water, you'd have no idea the activity taking place mere centimeters from your flailing limbs.

Speaking of Finding Nemo, sometimes sea turtles will pop above the water, but most of the ones we saw were swimming lazily along the ocean floor. What a way to live.

Hey, man.

"Do you have your exit buddy?"

Cruise in the boat

Noah told us many jokes during this vacation. One of my favorites:
What did one snowman say to the other?
Do you smell carrots?

When you're tired out from the playing and the snorkeling and the treading of water, it's actually quite relaxing to cruise around on the water for a while. Our driver showed us some of the many beautiful views of the Bahamian islands while providing complimentary hair-drying services.

5 minutes later...

I didn't even pack my flat iron for this trip. When it's this humid, you just let your hair go crazy.

Get sunburned

Guys, I tried not to get sunburned. I thought applying sunscreen three times in six hours would be enough. I thought putting chapstick on every chance I got would protect me from the horrible experience of sunburned lips.

But my skin was just not ready for the midday Bahamian sun. I still suffered the second worst sunburn of my life and came home with an entirely new skin color and really attractive blisters on my bottom lip.

Kayak

I'd never been kayaking before so I made my brother go with me. Turns out the hardest part of kayaking is syncing up with your fellow paddler, a challenge when both paddlers are used to being in charge.

"Follow my lead, I totally know what I'm doing!"

Water slide

Turns out some beaches have water slides! In fact, the water park at CocoCay has the tallest water slide in North America. I hopped right in line, hoping to come away with bragging rights, but only made it about halfway up the tower. At that point there was still an hour to wait, and I was already panicking about the height, so I abandoned my post and zoomed down the "drop" slide instead. (You stand on a platform and it makes you wait an eternity before dropping you into a tube. I only went because my dad, who is also afraid of heights, went, and I couldn't let him out-brave me. We all survived the experience.)

The drop slide is the yellow tube. There's another one on the other side so you can race. 

Jet ski

This was a major highlight of the trip for me. I was a little nervous at first, but once you get a feel for shooting across the ocean in your own little automobile, it's hard to keep the grin off your face. Zooming across that vast, beautiful ocean at the 37 mph max speed is an experience I'll never forget.

Lightning cut our kayak excursion short, but luckily it stayed away while Tyrel and I were jet skiing (still got rained on, though). It would have been truly tragic to cut that ride short, even with a refund as consolation.

The cherry on top of two days of beachy entertainment? No books were harmed in the experiencing of these activities. 

The journey of a book

When I'm planning a trip, one of the first items on my to-do list is to find an independent bookstore nearby. And when it's time to pack, I make sure to leave space in my suitcase, strategically staying under the weight limit despite my tendency to overpack, and dedicate most of my souvenir money to bringing home a new stack of books.

My latest haul, from Symposium Books in Providence, Rhode Island, has been somewhat disappointing. I loved the book on punctuation I picked up at the ACES conference, go figure, but the stack I carefully selected during my bookstore wandering has so far yielded two 3-star books and one DNF ("did not finish," for those not fluent in book nerd lingo). Already, two of the eight I plan to take to a local used bookstore—in exchange for different books, of course.

This is my "I just spent too much money but simply had no choice" face.

Returning or exchanging any other purchase is an annoyance, but I don't mind it so much with books, even if I lose out on money. I make sure they find a good home elsewhere (unless I hate the book; then I make it suffer). I like to imagine one of my book finding its way to someone who will appreciate it. Even if it had to travel from Rhode Island to Utah to a yard sale to a bookstore in Colorado—there's something beautiful and serendipitous about all the exchanges that must happen to get a book to where it belongs.

It's one of the reasons I like to check out used bookstores occasionally, too. By taking home a book that used to belong to someone else, I'm adding a little bit of their history to my own library.

Take Under the Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes, for example. I bought this at Marissa's Books in Murray for $6. The former owner (male, I would guess based on the handwriting) had underlined passages throughout and left comments in the margins. For example, this passage on page 19 was underlined: "If you can't got first class, don't go at all." Next to this the reader wrote: "Reading this in first class STL–SLC. Ha!"

Now isn't that lovely? I have a clue as to where this book may have come from, and insight into the person who enjoyed it before I adopted it. Maybe he was traveling for work, or maybe he was a rich man who loves to cook (many of the recipes had markups, too). Maybe he was reading it for a school assignment, which is why so many of the philosophical passages are underlined.

This book wouldn't have meant as much to me without the personal insights the original owner added to its pages. Now it's one of my favorite books, purely because of the way it connected me to a stranger I'll never meet.

Any reader will compare books to friends at some point. Books go through quite the journey to find us, after all.

Fear

A few weeks ago, I took a couple long plane rides to Providence, Rhode Island for what I like to call my annual word nerd vacation (an editing conference). I went a day early so I could attend a writing workshop, where I expected I'd pick up a bunch of tips to bring back to our writing team.

Instead, I got group therapy.

Dave Ursillo, the guy running the workshop, wasn't there to teach us how to write. He was there to help us figure out what our main blocks (he called them "shadows") are that prevent us from writing, and to help us overcome them. We all took a quiz to find out what our main shadows were, and then the group therapy commenced.

Of the three shadows—guilt, shame, and fear—I scored highest in fear. I got the highest score in fear out of the whole group; in fact, no one scored that high in any category—except for me.

I wasn't surprised by my results. Fear drives just about every decision I make, whether I realize it or not. There's the fear of failure. Fear of wasting my time. Fear of rejection, of looking stupid, of making the wrong choice, of making a mistake. The bigger, outward things like riding roller coasters and traveling alone and pursuing a master's degree I can handle, but the less abstract, internal things I tend to sit out. Send a dragon my way and I'll fight it eventually, but invite me to do something I don't think I'll excel at and I'll respectfully decline.

But there is a bright side to this writing shadow. Those who score high in fear have a knack for finding a sense of home in their writing, like journaling. As someone who has journaled regularly since the age of 8, I am much more comfortable sorting through my thoughts in writing than I am in confiding in someone I'm close to. In that private writing realm, there is safety.

Dave's recommendation to me was to write under a pseudonym or as an alter-ego of a character I want to explore. Which is spot-on advice that I intend to follow, but the past few days I've thought more about how this might extend to other areas of my life. If I pretend to be someone else, would that make it easier to take risks? Could my instinct for avoiding the spotlight be the shield that protects me as I try new things? And maybe there's more truth to the "fake it until you make it" mantra than I realize.

If nothing else, this workshop reaffirmed one of my core beliefs: some solutions can only be found when explored through writing. And that word nerds are kindred spirits.

And a little child shall lead them

During those dark years when my younger siblings were no longer cute and I had no nieces and nephews, I thought of myself as "not a kid person." I wanted kids of my own some day, sure, but I certainly didn't want a career that involved kids, and I never felt the need to hold every baby I saw.

Seven years and six nieces and nephews later, I still don't consider myself a kid person, and I still have no desire to spend all day with other people's kids. But the minute the first nephews entered the scene, it was easy to find my kid mode again, and watching my little brood grow and discover new things is one of the best things about my life right now.

I adore my kids, but other people's kids? I don't care about them. (That sounds less harsh if you say it in Jim Carrey's Count Olaf voice.)

Except, even that is changing. Early in my "try family ward" experiment, I was given the calling of primary pianist, my dream calling and one of only a handful of family ward callings that didn't terrify me. So before I could jump ship and set sail for mid-singles Mormon land (would it be creepy? pathetic? not so bad? Only one way to find out!), I snatched up my chance for an easy, fun calling, and the ice around my heart began to thaw a little. I started loving those kids very quickly. You try listening to kids sing every week without turning gooey inside.

Having gone so long without kids as a part of my day-to-day life, I had forgotten a few things. Like how much they have to teach you. How they give love away freely, are unashamed of what they love, are far more forgiving than adults are.

And since it's been even longer since I was a kid, I've forgotten some of what it was like to have childlike traits myself. For example, the memory of being a shy kid is painfully clear. But surely I never made an unprompted, public display of affection about something I loved unashamedly, like kids do every week in primary. Surely I've never been capable of letting loose like that, in any form of my personhood.

But perhaps I'm wrong on that, too. Yesterday during my drive home, the song "The Power of Love" came on. This was my absolute favorite song when I was about 8. I wish I could say I was talking about the cooler and more socially acceptable song by Huey Lewis and the News, but no, my little heart wanted Celine Dion.

I loved this song so much I kept the karaoke tape in my Walkman (when my mom didn't need it for singing gigs). It had one track with Celine singing, one without. I would listen to Celine sing first, and then I would step onto my imaginary stage and belt out the words on my own. One night I was singing so loudly my dad had to come in and tell me to be quiet so he could hear Sports Center.

It boggles my mind that there was ever a version of me who didn't care who heard me singing a solo. I've always liked singing, but I hate singing in front of people. I thought it was always that way, but then this memory popped up to contradict me, reminding me that there was a time I was comfortable enough, unashamed enough, to sing the song I loved before checking to make sure the house was deserted. I am in awe of that little girl; I wish I had her lack of restraint.

A lot of the time, kids aren't angels. They're loud, disobedient, messy, mean, exhausting—you know the list, whether you've procreated or not. The admonition to "become as little children" shouldn't be taken literally in every sense. But there's a reason we spend a short span of our lives being told to "act more like a grown-up" and the rest to "become as a little child." Kids are generally untainted by the complexities of adulthood. If they're taught good principles, being their best selves just comes more naturally.

Kids these days.

Score one for the thirties

Today was a Friday like any other. I felt like I was on day 8 of the workweek instead of day 5, and my mental reserves were unjustly low. I only wanted to get through the day so I could go home, slip into my pajamas, and watch TV for four hours before going to bed early.

I envisioned these happy thoughts as the typical "what are your weekend plans?" chit-chat was going on around me. There was talk of get-togethers with friends, date nights with significant others, drowning of sorrows in ice cream because of a lack of significant other, and typical parent duties. I didn't join in because I didn't want to make anyone feel bad for having less awesome plans than I did.

I've listened in on these types of conversations since I was a teenager. My typical weekend plans haven't changed much—aside from no longer needing to work dinner rushes at Domino's—and neither has the general expectation that one must have weekend plans. But my reaction to this brand of small talk has changed.

As a teenager, I felt like a loser for rarely going to parties and football games and dances. My goal in life was to get a life, which was a difficult feat considering how few friends I had and how shy I was. Secretly I was relieved I had to work most Friday nights so I wouldn't have to admit to anyone I simply didn't have anywhere to go, or, even worse, that I would much rather stay home with my family than endure a "fun" outing, which were typically spent dodging whatever weird guy I didn't want to have a crush on me at the time.

I figured I would rectify all this when I was in my twenties. And to an extent I did—that was my most social decade—but the feelings of inadequacy were replaced with thoughts like "I worked my whole life so I could have a boring, unglamorous adulthood?" Eventually I stopped lying to myself and accepted that having an interesting life was just not fun—or healthy—for me, but I felt guilty for filling so much free time with books and hobbies and TV shows and alone time. Wasn't this the time I was supposed to be out trying new things, dating lots of people, seeing the world? Constantly? Without pausing for breath?

And then I entered my thirties. Still encountering the same questions about my weekend plans. But no longer bothered by the unremarkable life I was living. Without the constant identity and existential crises young people face and the uncaring attitude I had developed about others' expectations, I was free to unashamedly enjoy the lifestyle that made me happy. One that involved comfy clothes, hours of me time, entire days, even, where I could do nothing but read if I wanted to. With the occasional adventure thrown in to add some variety.

That's the great thing I'm discovering about my thirties. I've figured out who I am, done most of the grunt work required to set me on a good path, and worked through a lot of the emotional trauma of realizing that life doesn't care about the plan you've outlined. All so I can live my version of a balanced, happy life, while cheering on others doing the same.

What are my weekend plans? Honestly, I'm too tired to answer with anything other than "sleep." And oh, how I'm looking forward to that sleep.