NOTE: Fixed the links! My bad!!!
Monday marked the date of my very last exam, which is surreal in various aspects: I don’t have to wake up at 6 am for 9 am classes anymore, the looming anxiety of ‘I should be studying right now’ as finally left me, and, technically, unless I don’t pass, it means I have finally, truly, completely got my degree. 3 years came and went at the blink of an eye.
Ever since then, I have been shamelessly and utterly lazy. Will you believe me if I tell you that besides writing here, all I’ve done is read books and webtoons, playing a silly little game and watching series? As if I went back 15 years, back at 6 years old when my schedules considered of school from 9 to 5, a toast with butter and disney channel. That freedom, the you-have-no-real-responsibilities-to-fulfil kind. I gave myself this one week the extraordinary luxury of doing nothing. But, something weird has been happening: even now that I don’t have anything to exactly put me on track, where I am able to sleep 8 full hours or more and don’t need to pick up my notes and spend hours studying, I’ve been waking up more exhausted than before, and I notice myself more distracted, disconnected from myself.
I wasn’t always this ‘lazy’ though. Even today, I’m not one to take naps unless I’m in really dire situations (seriously sleep deprived, sick, or having a tougher emotional day) - they’re not something I regard as ‘fun’, I see them as ‘necessary to continue functioning’. Before university, I was restless: each and every minute of the day was spent doing something, anything, that could bear fruits, results that were tangible, that could prove my time is worth of something, that i was worth of something. As if I had the energy of one hundred stars within my veins, I couldn’t sit still, and I considered that one of my best traits, a quality to boast. I used the number of tabs in my browser as a measure of productivity, and I was unafraid of some silly 15 tabs or so; I’d pick up working out again, I’d go back to cooking, I’d pick up 10 books or so and read them in under 2 weeks, so I could review, share the word, socialize. I wonder now if there’s some residue of that restlessness in me, right at the bottom, making my days miserable. I find my mind wandering to the next thing I need to do even when it isn’t urgent (which is searching for a major), a life or death situation, but it takes so much strength now.
There’s a strange, yet not ever-present type of guilt. As if I shouldn’t enjoy time off, as if fun needs to be deserved (which, I technically have earned, after a semester of working) and serve for some greater end. Just the other day, I felt so sad and blameworthy for falling asleep as I was watching a documentary on the tv, and it pains even more because I’m aware this is an universal struggle, where so many of us don’t think we can, should, must rest. Where we are unable to truly recharge because we don’t think we’re worthy of resting. That we don’t deserve to stop, or, rather, because life doesn’t halt for anyone, to slow down. To keep moving but not be rushing or loosing our calm, our cool, take a second to truly appreciate what we have around us, its beauty and peace and quiet.
When I was younger, I hated silence. Being in a silent room, or not talking with the person standing next to me, felt like torture. Even today, for a task that might only take 1 minute to complete, you’ll find me picking a song, spending an extra minute just to chose the perfect one, maybe an extra second or so when I have to shuffle it. I never wash the dishes without a video or music playing in the background, sometimes I even rewatch episodes of my favorite youtube series like buzzfeed unsolved or puppet history as I do something else. When going to bed, it’s very rare for me to fall asleep without playing a podcast or a playlist, placing 15 minutes on the timer.
I guess you get the picture. College, the pandemic, the passage of time, nothing really helped ease any of this, this… presence of discomfort. This strange uneasiness. I need a breathing space, and looking back, it feels as if all my efforts to find one keep failing. One of the articles I read for this letter said, and i think it’s very fitting: we can run from ourselves, but we can’t hide in the end. That’s kind of what I’ve been doing. Hearing and creating noise, ruckus, something to stimulate me just enough so I don’t have, don’t consider calming down as an option. I’ve wired my brain to see any leisure as futile.
But that’s not all. Against the odds or my better judgement, I’ve changed, I am not the same I was at 15. It’s overwhelming, nerve wrecking even now to sit and answer all messages, read all emails, watch and finish all movies or series sitting in my storage. Funnily enough, seeing 15 or so tabs isn’t as welcoming. Like a computer, I overheat, I press the stress button 8 times in a row as if it’s stuck and it didn’t light up my nerves the first time. It’s been harder to juggle everything I want with making sure I’m ok, ‘stable’, I guess.
Like a rollercoaster, my days are an up and down stream, an annoying on-and-off switch of ‘Do something that will raise your energy!’ and ‘I am too exhausted to do anything!’ with the additional ‘But you can’t just do nothing, you’ll feel awful!’. There is no better option, they are all short ends of the stick.
Is this the price to pay for living? Being pushed from all sides and try not to tear up? How do you learn how to rest in a culture that doesn’t really allow it or accept it without shame? Am I just supposed to feel exhausted and not do anything about it? Am I doing too much or too little? Enough or not at all?
See? I feel like a dog chasing my own tail. For now, these are the thoughts in my mind, which I hope to sort out some time soon. I know I want to, in a week from now, write to you in a better state, more hopeful, brighter. But I won’t make any promises. Until then, I hope both me and you are able to sit, in silence, for 5 minutes, without tearing our hairs out.
Thank you for reading delicate. I hope this next week treats you kindly, and that you’re able to enjoy your own company.
delicacies of the week
The article I found as I was researching for today’s letter is titled ‘Why Doing Nothing is Actually One of the Best Things You Can Do’. I’ve read it two times already, but might have to read it over a few more to really soak everything in.
This dog wearing shoes inside a subway carriage. I think I melted a little when I saw him, and he doesn’t fail to make me smile even now. Look at his cute little paws!
I’m not the biggest Conan Gray fan (I only recently got into his music, after ‘Telepath’), but his album, ‘Superache’, which was released last Friday, surpassed my expectations. He doesn’t have the most extraordinary voice, but he nails the sort of sad, hopeless-generation music that seems to be in style. Some lines here are there were also very clever in his lyrics. I especially liked ‘People Watching’, ‘Astronomy’, ‘Yours’ and ‘Footnote’.
Speaking of Friday releases, I really loved Nayeon’s ‘Pop!’. It’s bubblegum kpop, energetic and fun in the right measures. ‘Up!’ was also a very bright and colourful song that was released this week, perfect for just dancing and goofing around.
songs of this week : late night talking by harry styles, blouse by clairo, and who's she by eloise| delicate’s playlist