And again...

Currently sitting on the couch in my apartment, surrounded by several days of unwashed dishes and piles of dirty clothes wondering how exactly I let things get like this.

Finals, for one.

And the thing that sometimes happens where I start to have to make choices about what I can bear to do in a day, and what I can bear to do doesn't include cleaning.

But the problem is, the way that works, is that very quickly things start to pile up and get harder and harder to deal with, as I similarly get less and less equipped to deal with them.

It's easy for me to use failures as excuses to give up entirely.

Didn't have enough time to work on an essay to the best of your ability, so what you hand in isn't something you're proud of? If you're me, this is a great time to assume that you're just going to have to avoid that professor for the rest of your life and spend lots of time hating yourself for your inadequacies.

Didn't do the dishes one night? Just keep not doing the dishes! Live in squalor! Leave your clothes on the floor!

Of course, that's not a very healthy or productive way to live, but thinking about all of the things I have to do can make doing anything at all feel nigh-on impossible.

I can,  however, start small.

I can wash one dish and put it away
and then another one
and then another one
until at some point, a few hours from now, I'm sitting on the couch again but this time everything's clean, and I'm eating homemade chili and listening to music and thinking about how all of that seemed insurmountable not too long ago.

But it wasn't insurmountable because every moment only exists on its own, and can be borne as such.

"Here was a second right here: he endured it. What was undealable-with was the thought of all the instants all lined up and stretching ahead, glittering."

Maybe it's pretentious to quote DFW here but part of why I love his writing so much is that, amongst other things, it introduced me to the idea that no single, individual moment is in and of itself unendurable.

And the fact that what feels unendurable, a lot of the time, isn't something particularly mountainous or painful, or would seem insurmountable to anyone but yourself. And that's ok too.

And sometimes on the other side of the mountain is a bowl of chili and a good book.

((with any luck, I'll be back before the end of the day with a photo to prove I made it))

---

Update:

I made chili!

Apartment is still a mess, but better than it was before

And I feel a little better now

Not amazing, but better; like I'm moving.

and tomorrow I'll be back to try again

xo

- Ella