I did it.

Old friend.

Something to celebrate, 13 years in the making.

I've only publically alluded to this recently, but my first grad program (not the awesome one yall know about. I seldom talk about the other one) was genuinely traumatizing, to the point where there is a Sarah before that 9-month period and a Sarah after it. Sarah's already-established mental illness became genuinely crippling afterwards, affecting many things - including my performance in my next program, which still haunts me and likely always will. Among the many things affected was my ability to read. I'm not going to describe the experiences or anguish here today, but do know it was bad enough where I could not and have not read a book from cover to cover since 2005, academic or otherwise, and was seldom able to make it past the first few pages. As you'd imagine this made academics quite impossible; I left grad school after four years of rabid headbutting against the inside of my own skull due to money issues and mental health, not physical health.

Again, skipping years of details and effort and therapy (good and bad on the last point, mostly meh), I wanted to anounce that I finished reading my childhood copy of "The Jungle Book" early this morning two days after picking it up. For someone that used to devour books in the way I used to this is an extremely large milestone and notable benchmark of healing.

Jungle Book was one of three books I used to rotate in my backpack throughout undergrad to give my eyes something to pass over during down time; I chose it for the current purpose due to it's former role as an old, familiar friend. I've picked out another of those three books - "Fahrenheit 451", a fave since 5th grade - as my next selection. I'm gonna be gentle with myself and just go from there with the titles I already have here in my apartment.

I don't really know what will come of this, but the accomplishment alone after 13 years of self-desensitization is nice in it's own right.