I’ve been wanting to write about something for a while, but I hate waking up and speed-scrolling past the bad news that I’m not ready to look at first thing in the morning, on a dreary afternoon, or at the end of the day and don’t want this post to contribute to that. I don’t want to think about how fortunate I am that my biggest problem consists of simply existing on a day-to-day basis. Thank God “You’re being called to sit on your couch. Ruminate like the snowflake you are and be fucking grateful for your circumstances while drowning in existential anxiety” doesn’t fit on that one meme, but we all know that’s also sort of what it’s saying.
Right now, I’m “stuck” staying with my family in the US. COVID-19 ramped up right after the presidential campaign I was working on ended, catching me flatfooted in the suburbs of Illinois, but also with people who call me on my shit, a 17-year-old family cat that meows inexplicably at 3 AM every morning, and a childhood blue-and-green polka dot comforter to pull over my head in response to said meowing. Technically, I’m just fine.
But Jesus Christ are the days long when you realize how few actual excuses you have to not do everything you always said you would do “when you have more time.”
Fortunately, I know exactly what the mouth of the tunnel that leads to a depressive episode looks like, and this time, I was able to say fuck that. That’s not to say the last couple of weeks have been easy, but by forcing myself outside for even 20-minute walks–or getting dressed as if I have something to do besides watch the news and wonder what, exactly, constitutes the need for a political coup if not this fucking administration—or even putting my microwaved plate of food back in for a second round because you know what? It is slightly masochistic to settle for the cold pockets in semi-heated food…all of these little things have led me to a realization: no one really cares what I do.
I don’t mean that in the narcissistic way
I mean it in the wash of relief that comes from realizing how the buildup of pressure and backlog of preoccupations that I always felt in the back of my mind were just that: in my mind. Blogging, writing, creating, maybe even existing often feels like such a difficult form to master that it has taken literally being confined to the space where I have experienced both some of my most intense feelings of safeness and entrapment to realize that mastering a form of expression comes from mastering yourself. And with myself being the person I spend the most time with nowadays, I am constantly faced with a simple question when I come up for air in between social-media refreshes: What do you want to do? This question inevitably leads to another: What do you like to do?
Shockingly, I’ve discovered that I actually don’t derive a lot of joy from moving around the house carrying my phone and the blank journal I’ve decided will be the original, priceless-in-the-future relic of the bestselling novel I write. (Yes, this is something I actually did two days ago. It’s a gorgeous little leather-bound that rested by my ankle as comfortably as a house-arrest anklet while I curled up on the couch and confessed my love of Bachelor memes and fascination with engagement rings to the Instagram algorithm.)
The next day, yesterday, I implemented a no-Instagram for the day rule
I can’t remember if I followed it (probably not), but the point is that I didn’t start my day with it and by the end of it I had actually finished a book I’ve been slogging through since January. Not because it’s a long book, or a boring book, but because it is a literary mosaic of world histories focalized largely through Turkey and an American journalist’s observations of how the American identity hinges on an insistent ignorance bordering on delusion with regard to the spectacularly performative imposition of our government model on foreign countries that routinely comes at the expense of their socioeconomic stability.
Anyway, I finished this book. And completing this activity, this hobby that I enjoy, reminded me of the importance of cultivating a hobby. Hobbies, these things we partake in for the pleasure of doing so (and if it’s not for pleasure, then it’s not a hobby…maybe it’s time to look at the role Instagram plays in the ceremonial showcasing of our hobbies in another post?) remind us that it is possible to complete something on our own time simply because we want to.
The want in and of itself is simple
I enjoy this, so I do it, and something in motion will remain in motion until acted upon by an equal or greater force, like turning the final page of a book and seeing the blankness at the end, this emptiness that encourages me and maybe you but certainly readers everywhere to remember that if you cultivate something, you are doing something, and if you are doing something, you will finish something. And isn’t this why we set ourselves in motion in the first place? In the hope of interacting with equal or greater-than forces?
