Effing Libraries...

I have trouble giving stuff back.

Most people who have lent me things already know this. What they probably don't realize is that it's not that I want to keep their stuff and pretend it's mine. I have every good intention of giving it back. I want to give it back. I just need to be reminded an average of four or five times before I actually do. (It helps if you come to my house, see the thing that belongs to you and say something like, "Hey, there's my sweater!")

There might be some psychological explanation that involves an innate inability to let things go instead of trying to hold onto them, but who cares? It's costing a lot of money in library fines.

Libraries are a painful reminder of my disorder. My children believe one must pay for the privilege of taking books out, because every time we go I am scraping change from the bottom of my bag or from under the seats of the van to pay the fines. They used to be bewildered that we had to return the books. "Why should we?" they would say. "We paid for them!"

Man, it's such a nice idea. You can take out books you would never, ever buy but are still curious about. You can borrow forty books at a time. If you want, you can just stack them up on the kitchen counter and look at them.

But libraries reflect back to me my inability to change certain patterns in my life. You would think that I would have learned, that I would have somehow altered my behaviour so I didn't have to feel the shame of shelling out seventeen dollars so my kids can take out a battered Garfield comic and nine Star Wars books.

But no. I continue to resist being a functioning part of this wonderful system of sharing. I mean, the system clearly doesn't work unless people actually return the books.

I am not proud of this. There's no need to lecture me.

By the way, if I happen to have any of your stuff, don't worry. I'll be returning it any day now.