In pursuit of happyness

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

I try to be healthy, I really do but when life gets one down, all one can do is to nurse oneself back up, and food is a good way to do so. So while I struggle to do two consecutive sit-ups, I can walk thirty minutes to and fro in the pursuit of food. In fact the only exercise I do is my daily walks to the supermarket.

A week ago, I started craving cinnamon rolls. This is not unusual as the rolls/buns/swirls/nuggets are some of my favourite things, and during the pandemic induced baking frenzy I would make them often. But I’m in a battle against my sugar addiction and I have abstained from cinnamon pastry for a while. I saw a particularly juicy wet bun on instagram and I decided I would give in to temptation and go get some during the week.

Throughout the work day, one thought kept me going; cinnamon bunzzzzzzzzzzzz. I worked till 7pm before deciding to wrap it up lest all the buns disappear. There is a large supermarket which is a thirty minute walk from my house; it has more things than the ones in my neighbourhood and I walk there sometimes to convince myself that I am exercising and getting my steps in. This far away supermarket has my favourite cinnamon bites (which is the way I discovered the supermarket and the true reason I go there) and they also have this cinnamon tear and share bun platter which I never tried because I always told myself it was too much (you know how I like to delude myself about eating healthy). But on this day, the platter was exactly what I wanted. So off I went in the pouring rain at 7pm in pursuit of happyness. (This brings back fond memories of 6 years ago when I had a McDonald’s craving for the first and last time).

Now you may not know that I am a little psychic (ha!) so before I got to the supermarket I knew I was going to be disappointed, and I was. I stood in the bakery section for a good minute, staring at the empty spot where the cinnamon buns were supposed to be, not knowing what to do next. I bought a pack of my cinnamon bites, which are nice but were not what I was craving. I didn’t want the hard delicious bites but the soft chewy bun. I decided to walk 15 minutes to a smaller store where they might have the bun but was also disappointed. Right before the final hurdle home I stopped by the store three minutes from my house and voila, cinnamon buns! Not the big sharer one I was craving but still a bun regardless. I could have saved myself the trouble if I had gone to the nearby store in the first place but hey, at least I got my steps in.

Then I went home and ate everything in one go-the bites, the microwaved bun; all that cinnamon goodness.

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Of course I had awoken the beast that had lain latent for months- the very next day I went out to the store for another bun but they didn’t have any so I had to make do with a cinnamon swirl (which I used to eat almost daily but does not compare to the bun). The day after that I made another trip and got two cinnamon buns! I heated only one in the hopes of saving the other for later but of course I just ended up eating the other one cold, right after.

On Friday I made another trip to the big store, making sure to leave earlier, and tada! packs and packs of the Cinnamon tear and share bun.

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Of course this was not enough; while debating whether to get two packs of the tear&share, I saw a 2 pack of “super cinnamon scrolls” which I had never seen before. I threw it in my basket and was giddy as heck, debating which one to eat first (haha I ate both). Well the super cinnamon scrolls tested off, and made my mouth feel weird. I thought maybe it’s because I was eating them cold straight out of the pack. I had eaten all but one bite when it occurred to me that maybe it was meant to be cooked first in the oven. I put this one bite in the microwave and it didn’t change anything. I fished out the packaging from the bin and it did not mention anything about needing to be cooked. I googled it and turns out it is a vegan recipe *insert blank stare* What a waste of money and calories. The reviews on the website are not pleasant either so I’m not the only one. I’ve been coughing since I ate it (although this really could be due to literally anything else).

It even looks weird.

And that’s that. A whole post about nothing but my love for cinnamon buns. I just want to eat these warm soft buns everyday with no repercussions. Alas, life is unfair.

Inertia

1. A tendency to do nothing or to remain unchanged.
2. A property of matter by which it continues in its existing state of rest or uniform motion in a straight line, unless that state is changed by an external force.

One thing about me? I will remain in one position- a flat, a job, a city- for years on end until something forces me to change. I am a creature of habit and routine; I like what I like and it does not take much to keep me content (happy is a stretch). For a while I enjoy the normalcy but then life becomes stale and I become restless. I bear this restlessness with unease, wishing for a change but not actually taking any steps towards this. Change requires too much energy and it is easier to remain in the same spot, until it’s not.

While this has been my comfort zone for years, I now find myself stagnant in the later part of my twenties. Stagnant; like a body of water with no current or flow, my life has become dull, unmoving and unpleasant. Though I (claim to) enjoy my routine, the stagnancy has been eating away at my spirit for a while now. Deep down I am a social person whose social skills/desires have been blunted by years of solitude and inertia.

I moved into a flat-share back in almost five years ago and I have been here ever since. In this time I have seen probably twenty people move in and move out soon after to greener pastures. They have changed jobs, houses, even relationships and cities; and I am still here- in the same doggone flat watching as the house gets dirtier and dirtier with each new batch of tenants. I mostly stay in my room, avoiding the only communal area-the kitchen-as much as I can. I am not free here and my soul is not at rest. I have grown weary of welcoming new tenants- I don’t care to know any new people. I so badly long for a big cozy couch, and the freedom to have a house all to myself (or at the very least to not be with strangers). So why not just move out? That is what normal people would do right? Well I am highly abnormal. What’s the point of paying more money in rent when I could just buy my own place and pay mortgage. So I remain here, stagnant and unhappy.

My Job is another thing- I like it okay, and as I always say-things could be worse. Still everyone in my year group and most of the people in the year above have moved on to new jobs, and I’m still here. My mother recently suggested that I apply for new jobs just for a change, as this is what people typically do. A new job could mean higher pay and more opportunities, but as always the change frightens me and I really cannot be bothered to go through the stress of change. Do I really want to go through the stress of job application only to end up with a job which could be more stressful and less flexible than the one I currently have? A job is a job no? I don’t want to quit my job until I find my passion/raison d’etre and can do that. In addition to the effort, my fear with change is the possibility of regret-what if the grass is not greener on the other side and I start to wish I had stayed where I was?

Change happens when the pain of staying the same outweighs the pain of change.

Well, I have had enough. I have started looking for a new flat. What was the last straw? I’m tired of the revolving door of people, and there are two mouldy pots in the kitchen that no one is taking responsibility for (it could really only be one person). I have been casually searching for possible options but now I have put on my big girl pants and actually started organising viewings. Yes I will have to pay more each month, but what is the point of money if I cannot use it to make myself happy?

As for my job, I will stay on for a little bit longer. A steady income is nothing to take for granted, especially in these pandemic times. But rather than simply say things could be worse, I need to actively become aware of all my options, both in the corporate sphere and in the creative space. I am reminded of this quote:

Find something to work on, something that makes you excited, something you want to learn.

It’s not just the job that stifles me, it is the fact that I am doing nothing else. There is nothing that feeds my spirit and makes me excited, I am just existing day in day out. I would not be so bored, if I had something to look forward to after work. I met up with some people from work recently and one of my managers spent some time talking about her garden and all her babies-tomatoes, radishes, cucumbers, even sunflowers. She is also planning her wedding so there is so much for her to look forward to in addition to work. Whereas I just roll out of bed, start working, and roll back in at night. Stagnant.

The sheer possibility of a change has brightened my day and lifted my spirits. I remember how excited I was when I first moved into this house; the joy of having my own space. I held on to that for five years too long. As stressful as it can be, change is so necessary from time to time. I hope I never forget this.