ANGELICA G WRITES

Today I finished reading a book that left me speechless and in complete stillness after I had read the last page and closed it. It’s one of those books that has left a little imprint in my being. That for me is the remarkable power of words, my god. Every once in a while a book does that to me, and I can’t help but tell as many people about it as I can. The name of the book is ‘Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life’ by Amy Krouse Rosenthal who wrote it in the style of an encyclopedia, from the perspective of her life. It’s a non-fiction and she explores each letter of the alphabet, writing about random, mundane things she’s noticed and notices throughout her life. She is extremely raw, relatable and real. Reading it filled me with moments of joy and sadness equal parts, it really is a masterpiece. It came at such a great time in my life because I started reading it at one of the hardest times – the Covid pandemic. As I write this post, Portugal (where I currently live) has recently come out of the 2^nd lockdown, and summer is approaching, so people are out and about again, filling restaurants to the brim every evening. At long last there is more cheerfulness and excitement in the air, which is comforting to see.

But the past 14 months have been absolutely bonkers and really difficult, for the majority of us, and I have found myself in a pit of anxiety and hopelessness more than a couple of times. I’ve spent countless days and nights obsessing about the future, despising the uncertainty, and wishing things were different. I’ve tried every possible way to escape the present moment, which I would justify with ‘oh well this is a fucked up time and so it helps to have something to look forward to in the future’. However I was really just trying to escape reality which was filled with so much fear, doubt and confusion. I felt exhausted by the end of the nights because it took every ounce of me to not live in the present. It was soul-sucking to be constantly living in some imaginary future where Covid didn’t exist, where I had a better job, where I could travel and make the most out of my time abroad. It was tiring. I know this pandemic has been rough, and I do think it’s normal to feel all these difficult emotions, but I don’t want to stay bitter any longer.

During that time (and still now) this book gave me a perspective I so desperately needed, and one that I will strive to take with me along my lifetime. The main theme of the book, the way I see it, is to revel in the ordinary parts of our lives. It’s really so stupidly simple, but marvellous all the same. I really do believe our cultural conditioning – and I’m talking from the viewpoint of someone who was raised in the western world – is so strung up on accomplishments, shooting for the stars, and never being satisfied. The older I get, the less I care about degrees, job titles, keeping up with fashion trends and posting my cocktail pictures on Instagram. I wholeheartedly just want peace, and I’m convinced we all do. Like so many of us, since a young age ( and until only very recently) I thought that I would only be truly happy when I had a respectable graduate degree from a good university, an esteemed career in the helping profession that made a difference in the world, a toned body, a fun group of friends and a loving partner. If I had all of that, I would be happy for the rest of my life – said the delirious inner thoughts. Why is our culture so obsessed with ‘having it all’? And what the fuck does that even mean? We spend most of our time, energy and resources striving for this ideal life, but we rarely stop and wonder if that’s our truth. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being ambitious, but being ambitious for the wrong things, yikes.

All of this to say, I think we so often obsess and fixate on some distant vision of grand happiness, and we completely miss out on all the tiny, yet spectacular, fragments of happiness that can be found in the most ordinary days. In the end, all of these days combined will be our life, after all, and wouldn’t be a shame to miss it all because we were too busy striving for artificial happiness? I’m sick of waiting for something I don’t even want any more, and I’m ready to just live. To let my heart be filled to the brim with the simple pleasures of everyday existence. Now that, I think, is magic.

Although here in Portugal we can now go out and about and do ‘normal’ things again, I find myself not really caring all that much. I used to want to make the most of every weekend, every free minute, to do something useful or productive or fun. I couldn’t stand the thought of spending a whole weekend doing nothing, there was always a museum to see, a restaurant to try, a park to explore. Perhaps it’s the result of these two tedious lockdowns and being left to surrender to it all, but I no longer feel this nagging pressure to be doing stuff all the time. It’s refreshing actually, and I hope it sticks. And if I ever get lost in all the noise again, which i’m sure I will, I hope I remember the magic in the ordinary, and find my way back here again.