Confessions of a magazine junkie

The irony (finally) hit me this morning.  With stacks and stacks of magazines around the house awaiting my free time and attention (ha!), I had bought a new volume with a headline proclaiming "DE-CLUTTER YOUR LIFE - SAY GOODBYE TO THE STUFF THAT IS WEIGHING YOU DOWN".  So, of course this magazine with the promise of a simpler, more free, and more organized life was purchased and then was promptly put with the other magazines I don't have time to read...

*Sigh*

The problem here is that I just adore magazines.  Their slick covers, their smooth pages with stories, suggestions, information all seems so seasonal, so relevant to life at that moment.  One of my favorite pre-kid pastimes was to have a stack of magazines at my side and page through them on a Sunday afternoon while M watched football...or baseball...or whatever was on ESPN.  I have a file where I tuck away certain pages I'd rip out -- ideas for a new house project, a recipe that looked great, an exercise routine, a book or album I wanted to investigate further.  Then, that pile would disappear into the recycling bin and I'd be content to have picked through lots of different topics, theories, ideas, and news in one sitting.

Life has intervened and I don't seem to have the luxury of time for this guilty pleasure anymore.  Tiny humans tend to see my stash of magazines as a challenge - how many pages can be ripped apart at once? And while I've cancelled certain subscriptions, I just seem to keep ending up with these slim volumes teasing that they offer solution or a leisurely read...a well-meaning neighbor who also loves her serialized fix shares her huge pile of mags every month, and at the grocery store the headlines pop out to me and I find myself buying them here and there...and they all end up in a pile, awaiting my attention.  And month after month they sit, the stacks of magazines that used to bring so much enjoyment -- now a source of angst.  A reminder that my time is not my own anymore.  A waste of money and space, and even more infuriating - just one more thing to dust!

I do stay faithful and true to a few tomes, and while I admit I devour Entertainment WeeklyThe New Yorker  and Vanity Fair, all three are read on a religious basis.  So they can stay...right? much faster than

It occured to me this morning I should just gather up the whole lot of the rest and put them out for recycling, cringing while I allow myself to start from scratch - just focus on what I can fit in to the time I really have these days, not the time I sometimes wish I had these days for reading, for whiling away a day curled up with something that captures my attention.  But I can't seem to let go of the months and months of issues I imagine must feature the perfect outfit, the fabulous recipe that will become a new staple, the story that will inspire me to do something amazing with my life.  The guilty pleasure has become simply guilt.  Of something that I can't seem to accomplish, can't check off my checklist.  And guilt, of course, that I want to have a day just to myself to page through the pile of images, ideas, and words and enjoy a reminder of how life used to be...