Obsessions
I’ve been leaning into it. I tell friends about my extreme couponing kick. My bathroom closet is littered with shampoo and toothpaste that I pawn off to every errant visitor who swings by my apartment. I buy ugly produce from H Mart’s clearance rack and joke that this is my version of religion.
I revel in the walk to each bakery, where I pick up pastries and bring them back to work. During intermission at Hadestown, my friend and I devour what remains. In the summertime as a child, I would take walks along thick, overgrown honeysuckle vines, plucking yellow and white blooms for a sip of nectar. It was that same feeling, that joy in small things.
On my way back home, I run into two friends on the Red Line. Before descending the stairs, I had briefly debated which side of the platform to take. I keep returning to the serendipity of that choice, how it meant a subway ride filled with laughter instead of silence.
Sometimes you know what you want your life to look like. Growing up, I used to wish I was elsewhere, dreaming about long flights across the ocean or well-kept apartments where I became someone who always made the bed. I read poems about not making other people your shelter and did it anyway, like a traveler on her way to see a natural disaster.
But I kept going. I found more people with a peculiarly fervent loyalty to one brand of floss and a penchant for throwing their heads back with laughter and a habit of sending long text messages in one unbroken chain. Home was a place I wandered towards and built, piece by piece, until it was no longer a reminder of what was missing.
At my bachelorette, people told stories about how we met. “You were so exuberant,” one said. Another said, “I remember you coming in and taking your coat off—” cue dramatic opening gesture—“ready to dance.” How many times does one have the gift of learning how one is seen?
I wandered through the party and watched strangers who’d just met getting along. I loved that I could be the reason for more friendships. I used to lament that I wasn’t destined for greatness, but now I’ve cheerfully given up on it. It was a ceiling I thought I could never reach, and then I stepped out beneath the sky.