Go Outside and Finish Your Cereal

I was consumed with dread leading up to this article pitch deadline because I have recently felt as if I have nothing new to say. I would be lying if I said I didn’t contemplate not applying to be a contributor at all this year, as I wondered if I had said everything that I needed to. 

I was uninspired because nothing good has happened lately, and I thought my article would mimic a conversation you’d have with an acquaintance, where they would ask, “So what’s new with you?” and you’d smile awkwardly and say “Nothing really” or “Not much at all”, and return the question. 

When I write, it's like a confession. It’s a reflection of where I am and a window into what I have experienced. But this year has not been kind to me and I have been consumed with feelings of grief, failure, anxiety, and depression. 

But what is new with that? It is something I have written before, something everyone goes through, even something I have already expressed – yet still haven’t been able to move past. 

And while I have been so incredibly angry with the world and bothered by the reoccurring events in my life, I tried to reflect on the better things that have happened in the past seven months or so. 

Two prominent things came to mind: my loved ones and the relationship I have with myself. 

The way other people have wrongfully treated me and undermined me, has only made me more sure of myself. I have come out of my predicaments with more confidence than I have maintained in a long time. I have begun to notice things that I haven’t before, like the freckles under my eyes and across my nose, and it seems like within everyone’s malice I have found contentment within myself. I realized I have grown to like the woman in the mirror much more than I did at 16.

The second thing I recognized is how special it is to be loved and to experience life with those who you love. 

I just finished reading Beautiful World, Where Are You by Sally Rooney and a specific quote moved me more than I could have imagined, “I was tired, it was late, I was sitting half-asleep in the back of a taxi, remembering strangely that wherever I go, you are with me, and so is he, and that as long as you both live the world will be beautiful to me.” 

And when I read that sentence, I suddenly felt a lot less angry. It didn’t feel so much like it was me against the world anymore and more just like me experiencing the world. 

I remembered how in my moments of hardships and loss, how many people were there for me, and how many people who I loved, loved me back. 

Mark Twain said, “I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.” And when I first came across this quote, it wasn’t from reading something of Mark Twain’s but from somebody’s artwork, who had paraphrased it as, “You’ve spent an infinity years not being born yet and you will spend another infinity years being dead. Go outside and finish your cereal.”

This person’s artwork and Mark Twain’s words reminded me of a post I read online that said, I like to pretend I already died and asked God to send me back to Earth and that I would never forget the miracle of being here. 

Romance, friendship and appreciating the little things will not solve all my problems but it is difficult to be angry at the world when your friend texts you because they saw something that reminded them of you. Or when you see a beautiful sunset and get a good grade on something you had been working on for weeks. 

Sometimes things happen without reason, and there isn’t always a lesson hidden in an event. But maybe the past seven months or so haven’t been all that bad, maybe I just learned about loss and how to say “No.”

And I know that I am not special or an exception. I will probably not achieve monumental things in my lifetime, and there are probably plenty of other people out there who are just like me. Who love to write and read, who study biology and who love to hike and camp. They probably get too competitive while playing family board games and speak French just like I do.

But if I get to experience this life with the people I love, then this world will be beautiful and that will be enough for me. 

Illustration by Sydney Hanson