Trigger warning

I’m a reader - I read a LOT. Hence English major, English teacher, professional writer. I like to think of it as a hobby, but most people look at me funny when I say that because they think a hobby should either make you sweat (running in a circle for no particular reason) or result in a product (knitting, painting). I have nearly 700 titles on my kindle, but lately I’m having trouble concentrating and have turned to semi-trashy novels. I do a sort of editing/literary analysis in my head as I read so it’s entertaining - really, I should volunteer my editing work for a publishing house of mediocre fiction.

Last week, though, I kept feeling like I needed a trigger warning. The first book - I get them from the library because they’re not worth a second read - began with a main character who has ovarian cancer and a low chance of survival. That was in the FIRST chapter. But I don’t like to give up on a book once I’ve started it, so I read the whole thing and the character dies in the end. That read didn’t feel like a relaxing hobby that distracts me from my grief.

So I thought, maybe I should read a romance novel - no one dies, no one mentions cancer, and there is a guaranteed happy ending (if you count repetitive mostly unimaginative sex and marrying someone you barely know as happy). So I chose one -something with a duke in it - and as I read I wondered why an author would set her novel in the 1800s and then use dialog like “Take a seat” and “Let’s go.” (Note to aspiring authors: at least read Pride and Prejudice (or watch the movie) to get a sense of the appropriate language.)

After that I started another modern novel and the narrative jumped back and forth from the first half of the 20th century with two young characters meeting and marrying to recent times where the main character is a 78-year-old widow. I gave up on that one. Cancer, maybe - widow, no.

So I read another romance novel, also with a duke, but with more of a detailed plot line hinging on a bunch of wild coincidences and facts hidden from the reader. But it kept my mind busy.

The third novel was the story of a young widow - her husband dies after 9 days of marriage in the first chapter. This one had been on my holds list because I like the author and I didn’t know what it was about and when I put it on hold I wasn’t a widow. I finished it, but I found myself getting depressed because the husband died instantly in a bicycle accident, the wife didn’t have to watch him die, and she was in her 20s with the rest of her life to meet someone else. I had to remind myself that competing for most sad with a fictional character is not at all useful.

So this is a funny anecdote that isn’t really funny, which is what I like to do with unpleasant feelings. But I find myself feeling like I’m not myself since Randy died. The written word - reading, writing, character, plot - that’s ME, that’s been my LIFE. If I can’t read anything but romance novels, if I need to know in advance if any character has cancer or dies, what does that mean? Do I need to become a knitter because knitting isn’t sad? (No offense to knitters.)

I’m not a person who throws the word trauma around lightly, but watching Randy die was traumatic. And trauma isn’t something you get over - you fold it into yourself and it changes who you are forever. And I’m feeling like this trauma took something from me - it took ME from me. Now I’m somebody else and she’s very sad.