A long time ago, I planned to be a lawyer. I will always remember the moment I realized it was not for me. I was working as an intern at a legal aid center and the lawyer, noting the book on my desk said, “I haven’t read a novel in decades…” There were a lot of reasons I left law school, but 15 years later that comment is still with me and really sealed the deal. I knew I wanted a life of reading.

Fast-forward to three years ago when I became a parent for the first time. Having previously averaged somewhere between 60-80 books a year for most of my adult life, in 2017 I read 21 books and in 2018 I read sixteen. Sixteen. That was dismal for me and it reflects my mental health at the time.

That’s what Donalyn Miller’s excellent piece, “Reading Joy in the Time of Coronavirus” is all about. Miller wrote, “As someone who has always found comfort and escape in books—benefits I could use right now—being unable to read has me feeling unmoored. Occasionally, I need to get out of my head and books have always helped. But not now.” And “Our reading lives ebb and flow—we have time periods of high reading volume and interest, and times when we read much less.”

If you are a life long reader, maybe you feel a weight lifting off your shoulders reading those words. I did. It’s normal to stop reading when you are stressed out and overwhelmed with what’s on your plate (it’s also probably normal to escape into books!).

Knowing that reading waxes and wanes over our life times and experiencing it ourselves, should help us tap into a new perspective when we meet someone who “doesn’t like to read.” Instead of rushing to match them with a book for so-called reluctant readers, we might try to understand a bit more about what they have on their plate. In her guest lecture for Prof LaGarde‘s YA Reading and Literacy course at Rutgers University, Miller pointed out that when we discuss access in a library setting, among access to books and technology we also need to include the idea of access to time.

If you’re short on time, give yourself some grace with your reading life (and with many things). If you are resolving to read more in 2021, recognize that you will need to carve out time to do it. (And PS: audiobooks, graphic novels, romance, YA, and middle grade fiction all “count”)