This blog is again meant to help people find some small treasure, joy, understanding, solace, whatever it might be for however long. It is also intended as a way for me to clear up space in my google drive as these quotes started out as photos, lots and lots of photos.
To be fair my google drive has always had lots and lots of photos. Not only do I love photography, but I feel like photos are a way to capture memories, emotions, and goal posts of my life. At first I started out with photos of the book covers as a way to remember the time, space, and place where I read its contents. Soon this expanded into photos of the quotes that inspired this blog, but the books and the reading itself started in another way.
In late 2023 like most millennials, I found myself needing some additional income and decided it was time for me to get a side hustle. I actually do not really even like the idea of hustle culture and that our 9 to 5s cannot provide a livable wage, but alas I joined the ranks and took on a weekend job as a caregiver for an older woman.
I have found a lot of joy being a caregiver (and definitely have faced some challenges as well), but with this new role it also meant that I had some additional time to myself when she was resting. Time that I used to scroll endlessly on my phone and what most would call a better use, time to devote to reading. As someone who has always been fairly emotional even though I try very hard not to admit it, these photos and the quotes that they contain have given me a renewed purpose.
Recently I heard that anyone over the age of 35 is considered middle aged. I knew what this meant for me as a woman entering the geriatric period of my child bearing years, but middle aged????? I thought that was reserved for balding white men in their 50s with an insatiable desire for fast cars, especially convertibles. Until now I did not realize, anticipate, or succumb to the fact that this period- known as middle age- also applied to me (I turned 35 last year).
Whether these quotes were or are my way of muddling through middle age I am not sure, but the fact of the matter is that they make me feel at peace, like my life has meaning and purpose. (there’s that p word again).
Anyway, if ever you get asked if you want to clean up your photo gallery, images of text like the many I have amassed are the first to go OR you can save them and purchase (for a very low, affordable price) more space for your drive…I see you google. That’s besides the point.
With this blog these quotes and the books they are taken from can live on; whether it is to stand on their own or encourage you to devour the origin of these written words. Here is to the authors that inspire us and the joy that is reading. Reading…that thing that you are hopefully still doing in my attempt at a blog and by sharing the quotes that captivated me.