There really isn't a point or structure to this post. It's really just to serve as an update so I hopefully start posting consistently again.
It's coming up on two years since I had my Year of Epic Fantasy Reading in 2017. Looking back on that time period on goodreads and how ravenous of a reader I was back then is a bit painful because I don't get the same amount of pleasure from reading that I used to. It's possible that my reading enthusiasm was starting to fizzle out even before then, but what really discharged my reading passion was the death of my Grandma Peggy. She really encouraged my love of reading, and I think in her declining years I would often use reading as an emotional surrogate because it was one of the things we both really enjoyed and liked to talk about together. (We lived in the same house for quite a while (During my gothic reading challenge), but after she suffered a stroke she lost her color vision and a bit of her hearing, she also became more and more suspicious and forgetful over time. I had tried to listen to audiobooks with her, but she wasn't interested. So I ended up up in my room either reading public domain books or listening to them on Librivox.)
I think I was in denial, at first, at how bad my grieving was going to be. I thought I could kind of commemorate her life by reading some of the books she enjoyed. The day after she died I went to Barnes and Nobel and saw the newest (and, as it turned out, the last) book in one of G.P's favorite book series: the Amelia Peabody series by Elizabeth Peters. The book was titled The Painted Queen.
I didn't read the back cover, I just bought it and left to Golden Corral to eat my feelings. Only later on did it hit me that this was the LAST book series that she loved, and she would never get to read it. That it would be the last book in the series ever (because the author had died seven years before its publication) and this book had to be co written by another author. And finally that the novel completely lacked any of the charm, wit, or originality that characterized the writing style of the only other book I'd read in the series (Book #1: Crocodile in the Sandbank). Sure it was kind of interesting to see Amelia as a more mature character and have little hints of all the things that happened to her over the course of her life (she had a kid, he's grown up now, her husband still adores her, and she has a mysterious arch rival with whom she shares a mutual, begrudging respect).
But, like, in terms of literary quality that book was complete fucking trash. They have this running joke that the antagonists who are out to kill her are these brothers who are all named after literary traitors (the only one I remember is Judas but one of them might have been named Moriarty or Beelzebub for all I care), and they each die attempting to kill Amelia. It's horribly repetitive and asinine, I did not enjoy it very much at all and I couldn't bring myself to read more than a few pages at a time. After a year, I gave up on it entirely and I am tempted to have a book burning ceremony I hate this book so much.
I also tried to finish Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time series, which I'd considered my magnum opus for the Year of Epic Fantasy 2017, but it was the time I was starting book number 12. Similar to the Amelia Peabody series, this book was also a book completed by another author after the original author's death. In normal circumstances I think I would have found the new writer's style very bland and unimaginative in comparison to the almost melodic and swell-and-flow style of Mr Jordan, but in the emotional state I was in at the time it felt like I lost a friend.
And then The Last Jedi came out...
(And honestly, like, it's just a bad movie, I recognize it shouldn't be so terribly offensive. But I was at a bad place emotionally, and Rian Johnson mocking my investment in a fantasy series felt like salt in a wound.)
It didn't help that, like, my sister's seemed to turn off emotionally whenever I started talking about how I was feeling. This hurt particularly because I thought, "I've always tried to be interested in how they are feeling and the things they are interested." It really opened my eyes to how much of my relationships were one-way affairs.
I was also really disappointed (though perhaps I shouldn't have been so surprised) in my Dad, to me he seemed entirely too glad that his mom was dead and wouldn't shut up about what a "beautiful" death she had. I was exactly the thing I didn't need to hear at the time and actually I was really pretty sure he was just glad he didn't have the obligation of taking care of her anymore, because that was something he really seemed to resent. I remember going over to visit right after my Grandma Peggy's brother had died, she was in tears and I was able to talk with her about it for a little bit but when my Dad showed up it he was very dismissive: 'Yeah, well these things happen, shut up and take your meds, Mom.'
Roughly speaking, the world became a stranger to me in October 2017 and I'm still not fully acquainted with the new world. I don't talk to my sisters very much anymore, and I definitely won't open up with my Dad any time soon.
I ended up doing a bit of soul searching and re-evaluating my life and all the things I'd invested in emotionally. I spent time with my Dad's older sister (who I'd probably only met once in my life before this time). She wasn't as invested in her mother's death either because she hadn't been very close with her in many years, but she was emotionally available for me and I will never be able to thank her enough for that.
Because I wasn't enjoying reading much I started cultivating an interest in film and film criticism. Aside from the massive Star Wars film criticism/rant playlist I've compiled on youtube, I find I really enjoy a lot of the Studio Ghibli films that I've seen. I also re-watched/finished the first five seasons of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. Both these franchises are ones that I'd initially been drawn to because of their fantasy elements (MLP particularly seems to have some really intriguing worldbuilding elements in a Greek Mythology-inspired setting but I find I enjoy watching it more as a slice of life/adventure series).
The next year (2018) I made it a point to spend time with my mom after she had surgery and we watched a lot of really cheesy hallmark movies and cheesy christian-motivational type movies. This year (2019) I've been trying to spend a lot of time with my Grandma Vi. She came to live in the same house where G.P. used to live. I have mixed feelings about this because I know this is not the ideal situation for her and I see a lot of patterns repeating themselves. But I do consider it my part to do what I can to enrich her life. She is certainly a lot more receptive conversationally than G.P. had been in the years prior to her death.
Eventually I did start reading again, but it's kind of a "whenever I happen to feel like it" kind of thing, and not consistently the way I used to.
My hope for the future right now is to travel more in the coming years and get a dog. I also want to do start a Horrid Novels Read-Along this October, but we'll see how that goes.
