(image generated by BlueWillow AI)
Remember Two-Bite brownies? The unassuming bag designed to resemble the paper bag a loved one — possibly your mother? — would use to package your lunch in before you went off to school. It was intended to signify nostalgia, remind you of something homemade, when in fact they were created in an industrial kitchen.
The ruse didn’t stop them from being delicious.
Anyway, consider this a two-bite blog post of things I’ve nibbled on over the last few days.
Bono likes to sketch Atlantic covers, so the magazine hired him – As someone who just sold her first piece of artwork to a small publisher, this both annoys and encourages me. Annoys because he doesn’t need this kind of exposure for his art; encourages because he’s… okay. Just okay, and that’s fine. His sketches are raw and full of emotion, whereas mine seem more tortured, as if I hold my Apple Pencil in a death grip (surprise: I do). I’m sure there’s a lesson in letting go in here somewhere.
In a recent episode of the “We Can Do Hard Things” podcast, Michelle Zauner talked to Glennon Doyle about being “afraid of her mental health” (among many other things). Zauner said “I would just lean into listening to like Elliott Smith and staying up till like 8 o’clock in the morning,” and knowing “that is something that was in me” and “something that kind of is out of control… I am very afraid of it.”
I’ve been doing this constantly since The Breakup, but in my world, it looks like spending hours watching television dramas where people talk through their problems, aren’t afraid of vulnerability, and understand that what might look like anger in their partner is in fact a deep-seated fear of the inevitable.
The problem of living in a relationship fantasy world is once I realized that fantasy couldn’t be farther from my reality, and that I’m running out of time to change that fantasy into reality, well, things can start to look a little grim. I’m now trying to nurture the parts of my personality that increase my well-being, like sitting outside on the seawall on a sunny day and hanging out with friends whenever I can, or making paintings that, unlike Bono, will never make it to the cover of the Atlantic (but enjoying the process anyway).
Quoted
“Accepting a life with less of a certain type of ambition is not the same as settling for a life with less meaning.” Jenny Odell, Saving Time (quoted in the New Yorker)
If you’ve read something here that resonated, let me know. I love sending email that isn’t related to work, and I like knowing what thoughts you’re thinking.