All Quiet on the LRF, pt II: Life, Covid, and Approaching 30

I am unspeakably lucky, and count myself as such especially during this last couple of years. I have had housing security and some level of work the whole time, and although the wages and conditions might have been better, it was nothing in comparison to what others were going through with Covid. I’ve been isolated and lonely and smothered at different times due to where I was living, but the variety, as well as the confidence I have in the love of people around me, have kept me sane. As the pandemic precautions wind down, I am ready to slough off the bad habits that have developed during this strange and unprecedented time. I am ready to adapt to a new world but not let it affect what I want for myself. I want to come away from this pandemic with Camus’ self-knowledge rather than Beckett’s nihilism, Octavia Butler’s self-imagination rather than bell hooks’ assertiveness of the self. Like many, a new year creeping up on me is a time for self-reflection and an assessment of what it is that you want from life. This last year did creep, as the one before it marched and stomped. Sometimes thinking about bettering your life means creating routines and developing towards goals; sometimes it means improving your immediate situationa. My focus has generally been on the former, but, of late, I have been doing both: working on my PhD and assessing how to be in a position I want to be, as well as improving my present by getting myself a full-time job in my field, getting fitter, and trying to see my friends and family more. I want to be more independent, more generally competent, and to be a person who seeks out or creates opportunities in the present, even if those are simply creating gateways to future opportunities. Alongside this there are a number of things I want to be – I have always felt that it is important to engage with your Self, to assert a Selfhood, and to be in a way that suits you, and that it is important to take time to establish that the life you live reflects your desires and cares. That, to me, is the meaning of self-care.

• I want to enjoy my work – even when I am working what feels like all the time. I am lucky enough to have opportunities in a field I care about. I am lucky enough to have some level of passion for my work that makes me not resent getting up in the morning and switching on my computer. I am lucky enough for that to be a field where, although progression is difficult, there are no explicit obstacles making it more difficult for me specifically to climb and where my development is and will be recognised. I am lucky to have all of these things and I do not want my drive for success to impact that. I want to enjoy my work, since we all spend so much of our lives doing it, but it is important for me to not derive that enjoyment from praise or success so much as the mundane tasks that I do as part of my roles.
• I want to develop myself outside of work, and be fulfilled by my hobbies. I want to take time for things I enjoy – reading, crafting, music – and see my love for them blossom and thrive. I will show this by, over the course of the year, making one wearable dress and reading an average of one non-work book a month. Just one, because it’s a hobby, not a deadline, but one all the same so that there is a tangible thing for my mind to wander back to and to hold itself accountable to.
• I want to be size 12. This is not because size 12 is the ‘best’ or ‘most healthy’ size to be, it is because size 12 is where my own body is at its most comfortable and I am trying to listen to it. I listed this goal in my new year’s resolutions as ‘learning to not need dessert every meal, but enjoying it when I have it’, and I think that is the best attitude: I do not want a body that pushes the limits of physical possibility, I do not want my body to be a priority, and I do not want my relationship with my body to be dictated by aesthetics; that said, I would like to age into a body that will continue to serve me and that I can dress in a way which ensures that the person I see in the mirror is an aspirational me. This is a goal carried over from last year, where I did sort-of manage, but I must undo some of the damage caused by festive excess, as well as develop a regular stretching routine to undo the tension on my back and shoulders.
• I want to enjoy the every day and always be the person I like to be best. I want to dress in the manner that I like (smartly), I want to take time for grooming, and wear lipstick every day. Doing this is a reminder that this is how I would like to be perceived: somebody who makes an effort to be neat, but not excessively so, somebody who enjoys classy and traditional femininity, somebody who does not put off until tomorrow what can be done today and actually uses the nice skincare and lipsticks she has instead of storing them for the future. I want to spend my money on things that I will enjoy every day, but not attract attention or feel the need to go overboard. I want my living environment to be tidy, not exhausting. I want to be somebody who clearly takes pleasure in a crisp, ironed shirt and who takes care of her possessions.

I think it feels that this past two years we have all been clawing at the cliffside of life, trying to make something out of rubble, trying to make our way upwards when our hands are pulling away handfuls of stones and not finding footholes. And I’ve managed to make something! But my god, am I tired of this. I’m tired of hard choices and building for the future and making do. I wish I wanted to get fat and work a normal job and pressure my boyfriend into having a wedding, but I want to be more. I want to learn a language and get fit and read books for a living, I want a life that is interesting and rich in the things that I care about, I want to leave my 20s the person I wanted to be at the beginning of it. Consider this all something between a rumination and a manifestation; a re-evaluation of what I want out of life, motivated by a midlife crisis and what ought to be a societal change precipitated by a shared catastrophe. I have days where my cynicism about the world that we have found ourselves in is overwhelming and dispiriting, but if my unquiet mind can be pushed to more fruitful pastures then I will take a bodily tiredness that comes from hard work above the emotional exhaustion of drudgery. If I must burn out, or have things fall at the wayside, let it be because of my choices and my own desires rather than the things that are given to me to care about. Let me choose my leisure and my work. Let my fight with life be for things that I want, and let my sword rest at the excess. This is my 2022 prayer, and let it be something that resonates fully into the year and beyond.

On This Topic:

• The dress I intend to make (probably not in a floral, sorry Liberty’s), slowly enough to not fuck it up
• The pseudo-philosophy book I bought for my partner this Christmas
• A way of looking at elegance and femininity that values kindness and choices above money or glamour

To-Do:

• Clean the whiteboard on the fridge and write out this year’s routine
• Finish my GWTW chapter
• Go through the panel suggestions for our conference! It was so wonderful to go through all of the abstracts with D and J, a total privilege

Today’s Culture:

• Nice leather goods. Desk inlays, handbag organisers, filofaxes, satchels. These are the things that make me feel a very specific kind of classy.
• Ochazuke. The perfect porridge alternative for breakfast – I make mine with black tea and a sachet of dashi / seaweed / flavouring I bought at the Asian supermarket.
• The one yoga video that doesn’t make me want to die.