The dance of eating alone is mostly similar. Often, the first staffer is surprised when he/she/they hear no one else will be coming. I see the waiter’s faces change from confusion to pity as they serve a single plate. I imagine solo diners still look as weird to others as they did to me at 17.
Modern self-care is not intimate or subjective. It looks a certain way: fancy yoga mats, bubbly baths with ridiculously expensive bath salts, jasmine-scented candles, face-masks that cost half of your rent, and “solitude” with Netflix. If I had a dollar for every time I saw a “self-care infographic” laden with these same items, I’d be able to actually afford that face mask.
I often think that the quote “You are the sum of 5 people you spend the most time with” should also add “You are also the total of the 5 apps you spend the most time on” – and let’s face it, at least one of those apps is social media.
Slowly, quiet will penetrate into all aspects of a whole life. There’ll be no need to hurry and yet everything will get done.
I spend chunks of my free time wondering about how a likely small thing would’ve shifted and made my present an entirely new life. Another chunk is spent wondering about the things I thought were ‘destined’ but were a genius work of the secret carpenter, serendipity.