the bookshelf

It has taken me four months to put my books onto my new bookshelf. The part of my personality that wants a "place for everything and everything in it's place" seems to be lying dormant lately. Actually there are a lot of things about my personality that don't seem quite the same, but that's another story. Since I couldn't overcome my drill fear, I waited until the Mr. Fix-It in my life was around to anchor the shelf to the wall. With a mix of eagerness and reluctance, I began to pull my books out of the box that has been an eyesore in the corner of my living room since June. No matter how many times I pack and unpack those books, the result is always the same - I look at them and think, "These aren't mine." Although I know they really are, they are from a time in my life that now seems like it never happened. Most of them have bookmarks half-way through, in keeping with my tendency to read too many books at once and finish none of them, although I don't do that much anymore. But all of them were purchased with the intention of somehow making myself better, some at the suggestion of other people and some by my own blind choice. Now they sit there on the shelf mockingly, a reminder of everything that I can't make myself be.