Last year a humongous urge to procrastinate came over me.  I was supposed to spend my time productively by re-reading my old Medical-Surgery textbook from college and prepare myself for the NCLEX exam that I needed to take.  But then Christmas vacation rolled around and when the whole family decided to just lounge around the house, I found it extremely difficult to concentrate.

So I picked up the non-academic first book that caught my fancy in my bookshelf.  Lo, and behold!  Indeed, it was The Lord of the Rings trilogy, otherwise known as The Bane of My Existence.  I first read this epic of a story when I was a high school junior and it proved too much for my tiny little head back then.  It took me a month to read each book and even then I knew that I understood only half the things I’ve read. 

To put it plainly, I was just simply not prepared for such an experience.  During the time I haughtily considered myself a “reader” but only had a couple of random books and the Harry Potter series under my belt.  Not that there’s anything wrong with those books, but they in no way provided sufficient for the saga that was Tolkien. 

I know, I know; the Lord of the Rings trilogy is a children’s book, which means that it was constructed in a way that young kids could easily understand.  The problem was, even though I fit right in with the age of the target audience, I wasn’t ready for something that needed that much imagination.

Reading the literature was hard work, you had to remember a ton of names: sons of whom, sired from this particular house, which lived on this part of land and eventually died in battle trying to protect this particular kingdom.  There was just too much information.  It was ridiculous how difficult it was to go over the prologue; there were too many names and dates mentioned that if you read it out loud to someone, you might as well be speaking in gobbledygook.  In fact you probably would’ve made so much more sense in gobbledygook, now that I think about it.

So yeah, after finishing the trilogy after three excruciating months, all I had gotten from the experience was the feeling of accomplishment and an almost failing grade in geometry.  To say that I was traumatized was an understatement; I was literally afraid that I couldn’t even look at the damned books.  And so there they sat on the bottom shelf of my bookcase, ignored for the better part of the next six years.

Until that fateful day, when I picked it up again, plopped down on the couch and started reading.  It totally floored me to find that it was indeed easier to read it now.  There are no words to describe how much smoother that experience went nor how deliriously happy it made me.  Sure, the movies helped a lot in the area of the visualization but there were a ton of other things left out in the silver screen version, you know. 

I am ashamed of myself actually, at the number of things that I’ve missed during that painful first reading.  It was almost as if I didn’t read the book at all, my comprehension was just that bad.  It’s strange how things work, as proven again for the umpteenth time: you see now that I’ve conquered this fear of the trilogy I plan on reading it at least once a year from now on, preferably during Christmas vacations.

Just like Christmas Carol, only not.  Speaking of which, I think I’ll pick that up now.