Maybe I'm Addicted

I'm out of control...

What an Enrique start to the post. This is not the glamorous kind of addiction. But it costs about the same. It’s my addiction to going to bookstores.

I plan dinners around bookstores. I time movie nights so I can walk in before the show. Even doctor appointments are quietly negotiated around one.

This is what it means to love a place more than a habit.

The problem is… I already own too many books. Too many stories. Too many unopened lives.

And they weren’t impulse buys. They were chosen. Touched. Thought about. Argued for in my head.

Instagram doesn’t help. It behaves like a polite dealer. It sends me lines like:“The unread books on your shelf are future peace.”Which is exactly the kind of emotional blackmail I’m vulnerable to.

So now, when I enter a bookstore, something strange happens.

I don’t feel excitement first. I feel anxiety.

There are too many stories I haven’t lived yet.

Too many authors waiting for my time.

Too much brilliance I am technically already behind on.

So I compromise.

I buy something small.

Something thin.

Something I can finish quickly!

So I can return to the real books on my shelf.

A perfect little loop.

In 2025 I read 34 books.

In 2026 my goal is 20.

Not because I’m reading less.

But because I’m reading slower.

This year I want weight. I want lineage. I want books that moved my ancestors before they moved me.

No pressure. Only presence.

I will still walk into bookstores.

Always.

Because this addiction isn’t about buying. (fortunately!)

It’s about running your hands over spines.

Standing quietly in front of someone else’s life work.

Reading the first paragraph like a handshake.

Letting a stranger tell you who they are.

And sometimes… just standing there… in a bookstore looking at

thousands of people who once had a thought and now have a book.

That is not an addiction.

That is reverence. 2026 let’s be slow.