Withdrawal

I LOVE Reading. I love it so much that sometimes it is painful.
First, I read too fast, and too obsessively. So if I want to check out a book from the library, I either have to find a book long enough to prevent my reading it all in one sitting or I have to get books in a series and get all of them. And sometimes I have no intention of actually staying up all night to finish a book, but once I enter the other Realm, time stands still.
I'm not kidding. When I am Off-World, people talk to me, I take phone calls, I walk and talk and interact, all without really being there. Out of body experience.
I do better on the 3rd and 4th reads of a book. Better about putting it down.

But what do I do when I have finished a book, or series in this case, and have nothing else to read (that isn't work reading) and am still kind of lost in the other Realm. If you have never experienced this, it feels like being homesick.

I am an addict.

For a while I gave up reading poetry and fiction because I finally admitted to myself that reading was interfering with my ability to be a human being on the planet earth. But I have taken it up again, recognizing that a reading me is the real me, but I am trying to find balance.

This agony feel sharper right now perhaps because the Realm has replaced good local friends of late. Moving preparations kept me too busy and created an inability to remain connected with people from whom I was about to be parted, and here in the new place I do not know anyone yet. Connection takes time.

So I will do two things, three will bring me into balance:
1. I will go the public library tomorrow and get a library card and come home with a book to read that is longish and that I have not read before and I will strive to read it judiciously.
2. I will throw myself into my work, which has too long sat fallow.
3. I will write more, blog, poetry, fiction.

Any other tips for book withdrawal are welcome, y'all!