State: processing, present, less inclined to escape
Reading Mode: lower-volume, audiobook-supported, comfort reads
Pattern: trusted authors, increased selectivity, attention shifting back to real life
This month I scaled down consumption dramatically in an effort to diversify my hobbies again. I leaned harder into audiobooks again while I busied myself with other tasks - doing one thing with my hands and one thing with my ears instead. I also caught up on a couple of TV shows that had been waiting for me. I focused a lot on what in my life and environment was affecting me that had made April such a high consumption month - I processed and dealt with the emotions I have been avoiding by reading. This in turn made me far more discerning with my reading. Since I have been working on my own novel, I've found that I notice things in books that I both want to avoid and hope to include in my own. I realised I have very little love for emotional exposition. Almost all exposition really. Unless something is intensely interesting, I don't need nor want to know about it. This also bled into my life because I started to feel that the interactions with my kids and nick were far more interesting and valuable than the stories I was reading, so I fully sat up and paid attention to all of that and chased moments I might have been checked out of otherwise. As far as life moments in May go, there was none. I never left the village or did anything out of the ordinary. I had no social engagements or events. This seems anti social and weird from the outside, but it's actually a state I prefer and feel safest in. The month was made up almost entirely of ordinary days, which turns out to be one of my favourite things.