A Rabbit Hole of Sadness

I started organizing my office, because it's been a week of summer (already!) and that makes me feel productive but in a not-school kind of way. 

Organizing my office led to organizing my books, 

Organizing my books led me to realize I am running out of shelf space (which is insane but true), even though I have literally brought about 30 books into my classroom this year and created the Jess Lending Library of adult books. I had one whole shelf in my office between paperback memoirs and contemporary fiction for my books from my English degree (and Bryce's classics, too). I had done this acrylic riser thing where you can fit two rows on one shelf, which helped with real estate, but I eyed it and was like, "maybe I can put these in the bookshelf upstairs in the hallway." 

The bookshelf upstairs in the hallway is against the side of the brick chimney, which is lovely, and it's an underused space. It has mostly books from our childhoods/adolescence, and... a butt ton of picture books. 

I have a huge stash of picture books for a variety of reasons. Some are treasures from my own childhood, some passed down from my mom's childhood. Some are from when I was a book club editor at Scholastic, and had tons of giveaways which I squirreled away in case I became an elementary school teacher, or, you know, had kids of my own. Some are books I bought for our mythical future children in times of hope, and also books I bought because they were pretty and informative (like The Secret Pool, a picture book about vernal pools, temporary habitats for early spring critters, which I kept). 

And then, there are the ones that still have the power to gut-punch me. 

These were gifted to us at our shower, and have beautiful book plates in them with notes from attendees to "Baby T." I have given away all of the board books, but I still have picture books that I couldn't bear to get rid of. Yet. 

But, it's time. It makes zero sense for these books to sit on a shelf, unused, when they could be read with and by an actual child. I need the space for books that fit our life now, and I'm ready to let them go. 

Of course, as I went through them I sobbed and felt the loss acutely. 

I read exactly one book plate and then decided that was just self-flagellation. I'd read them before, I didn't need to revisit that part of things. I could feel all the love and hope and support from everyone who gave books to us, and the intentions infused in the ones I bought myself, without reading the words from that time. It was overwhelming just looking at the covers. 

They brought to the forefront a reminder of an alternate life, a ghost life that never fleshed out. I felt it viscerally. Not because I want that life or am unhappy with my life now, but because of all the promise those books represented, and the heartbreak of a dream unrealized. 

I am giving the books to my friend who is also my hair lady (responsible for my fun hair color tapestries!). She has a little girl just the right age to enjoy and grow into these books, which are a mix of Scholastic giveaways and books meant for our phantom child. Bryce went through the stack and had veto power, but only one made it back to our shelf. We still have a whole shelf with picture books and early readers from our childhoods, and books that are special to us for other reasons. 

Even though sitting there, going through those books, ruminating on what was and what could have been and the guilt of so much generosity gone unused sent me down what Bryce dubbed "a rabbit hole of sadness," I can see in my mind this little sprite reading these books, gobbling them up, hopefully becoming an inspired avid reader...and it makes me happy. 

The upstairs shelf now.