Five Mangoes and Three Sandwiches
Saturday - 03.13.21 - 2:09AM
I don’t know what’s stopping me from writing. I keep telling myself I’ll do it later – after the next inane YouTube video, or the next episode of whatever show I happen to be watching – and I keep putting it off.
I tell myself I’ll start waking up earlier and writing when I wake up, but I keep waking up too late and wasting the whole morning. I start work at 10:30AM Monday to Thursday and I usually wake up at about 10:00 – sometimes 9:30 if I make more of a conscious effort. I want to start waking up at 8:30.
I have this vision of myself waking up early, leisurely making myself some breakfast and some coffee, and then sitting at my dining room table with my laptop, wearing my bathrobe and glasses, and just typing away – fleshing out some new idea and shaping it into words. I also need to get better at coming up with new ideas.
I don’t know what it is exactly. I don’t think it’s writer’s block that’s stopping me, because once I start, I can usually keep going. It’s some sort of weird fear that stops me from starting in the first place. Is it so cliché to say that maybe I don’t believe whatever’s in my head is good enough to write down? That I think it’ll all turn out to be a pile of garbage and nobody will even find it worth picking through?
People always say you get in your own way. I feel like I need to make a habit of just sitting down and writing – just churning something (anything) out. I latch on to that idea and spend a few days at a time exhausting some fickle motivation that drives me to better temporary habits, but I always end up falling back on old lethargy and insecurities.
Maybe this will be the year that I finally get over that.
*
I’m at my parents’ place again this weekend and I found some mangoes sliced up in the fridge. I was watching the Oprah/Meghan Markle interview in my room, and I kept going back to the kitchen to grab more slices of mangoes, putting them on a little plate and taking them back to my room. When my dad saw how much was left, he told me I’d eaten the equivalent of five mangoes. Do people feel sick when they’ve eaten too many mangoes? They were so good, I felt like I could’ve kept eating them forever.
I’ve also discovered a newfound appreciation for grilled cheese sandwiches. I think I’ve eaten at least three of them over the course of the last week. On Thursday night, I didn’t feel like eating anything that I already had cooked for dinner, so I made instant ramen and a grilled cheese sandwich and called it a night. How’s that for the beauty of adulthood?
It’s weird because I don’t think I particularly liked grilled cheese sandwiches as a child, so it’s not like they’re tied to any fond memories or nostalgia or anything. I think I like the idea of a grilled cheese sandwich because it makes me think about that scene in The Devil Wears Prada where Andy’s terrible boyfriend makes her one with Jarlsberg cheese and she ends up too irritated to eat it.
“There’s like eight dollars of Jarlsberg in there.”
I have a distinct image of him cooking it over the stovetop and it looked so good. Also, I just love butter and cheese.
*
I keep watching shows that induce mild anxiety in me and I’m not sure if it’s good for my mental health. I mean, I’m pretty sure it’s definitely not good for my mental health, but I’m not sure how detrimental it is.
I finished all four seasons of Search Party on HBO on my sister’s recommendation, and it was basically the story of four self-obsessed Brooklynites’ descent into chaos and madness. One terrible thing kept happening after another, and it was hilarious but also kind of stressful.
Now I’m watching The Flight Attendant and it’s a little distressing to see this woman, who clearly has substance abuse issues and is suffering from some unresolved trauma, try to grapple with a new crisis. It makes me think of all those nights I don’t quite remember, with all those unanswered questions and doubts about my own actions. Waking up from one of those nights was never really the best feeling.
Maybe I should stick to watching comedies like Schitt’s Creek, where there’s so little conflict but still a lot of humour and entertainment. There are already enough stressful things about life right now without adding fictional stress to it too.
I’m also reading a book about the Rwandan genocide, so maybe I should save those stressful shows until at least after I’m done that.
On a brighter note, the weather is getting nicer and the sun is staying out for longer so it’s really starting to feel like spring. I was in a terrible mood a couple of days ago while I was working at my desk, but then I looked outside and it was raining and the sun was setting so the sky was full of pink and orange hues and it made me think of carefree summer evenings walking aimlessly in the rain, and I instantly felt better. There’s something acutely liberating about walking around in the rain on a hot summer day when you know you don’t have to be anywhere.
I want that feeling again.
