I’m grumpy today.

My toast didn’t fall butter side down. It didn’t rain after I washed my car.

And yes—I checked—I put on my big girl pants today.

But I am still grumpy.

The sun is shining, the sky is blue, the wind has died down—and in the desert that is important for the sandpaper effect of dust in eye socket plus blinking.

Looking at my life, in this moment—this day—I truly have nothing to be grumpy about.

So what’s the deal?

I was thinking about this blog and my past and how I dealt with things, and I remember quite vividly, viscerally even, reaching for a book whenever I felt…grumpy. Or sad, or any negative feeling I had.

Escapism.

Not the healthy kind either.

I have anecdotally mentioned staying up nights reading late, late, late when I should have been sleeping. That is cute and true. And telling of a great book. But also telling of me.

Lacking boundaries.

But it was more than that too.

I always had a book in my backpack while I was in school and then specifically shopped for purses that would fit a mass market paperback—oh, right and a wallet, too.

I would unfurl pages every time I sat, waited, had any sort of momentary reprieve—whether real or forced—from my current circumstances and danced between the pages of my most current unreal life adventure.

When computers come into being—yes, I am of the era before the internet where I scavenged food from the dinosaurs—I discovered online gaming and escaped into that whenever I was not at work. Or doing other forced things like socialize with other human beings.

I wasn’t the fully emersed gamer that forwent all things reality and life, and life engagement. But my choices and the lost time when I could have been doing other constructive things that bring me true joy and not just distraction make me sad as I look back.

I know why now.

Why I spent all that time escaping. It is a sad reason in and of itself. And quite justifies the reaction. Book and game alike.

But as the sad reason still exists, I am now pulling my nose from my book, my game, more often. Much, much more. And facing down that reason so I can be at peace. Find true joy in engaging with life. And moving on.

It is hard. Truly.

And there are other reasons that bombard life every day that I could hang my reading excuse hat on and dive out of reality, escape again between the pages.

But that doesn’t help, long term. Sometimes short term it could make life worse. Harder.

Do I still read?

Oh yes!

Every night and it is a joy. Sometimes outside in the sunshine.

And I’ve added nonfiction into a FICTION ONLY reading club I had firmly established within myself until recently. So I am educating myself along with getting other people’s opinions on matters, and expanding my understanding of the world.

Creaking the rusty wheels of my constructive thinking. Having my own thoughts by putting information together I’ve actively gathered. Asking my own questions.

And that is also a joy.

Hard sometimes.

But hard doesn’t have to mean bad.

Escapism versus reality is the title of this blog and that is a question I ask myself constantly.

Do I want to escape or face?

Is reading now a joy, a break, am I using it as something healthy and beautiful, as reading is? Or am I just using it?

Using.

So anyway, I decided to write today about me being grumpy and not reading or gaming, not escaping from it.

I embraced it. Ask some questions. Figured it out.

Wrote this blog.

And it was hard.

But I am glad I did.