the first day of school, perfect jeans, and a writing block

Over the past few weeks, I haven’t felt much like writing. I'm not sure if it's quite a block, or a lack of motivation to do it. When I have been out and about and doing things, I’ll see or experience things and draft a couple opening sentences for a blog post in my head, but nothing ever hits the keyboard. Or, if it does, I lose it after 3-4 sentences. Those small false-starts have mainly been about how it’s August, how I leave for school soon (literally 14 days from the time I’m writing this), or how I forgot today was the first day of school for the district I live in. Yeah, and I went to Starbucks 45 minutes before their first bell rang. Not smart, at all.

No but let me take you through my morning for a moment using a general (and rough) timeline:

7:00-7:50 am: A set of alarms going off, and as I snooze one after the other, the earliest one starts to go off again.

7:57 am: My mom calls. Says she has a headache and she’ll buy Starbucks if I go. Of course, I'll go.

7:58 am: I put on a sweatshirt to take the dog out and we go out, then come back inside.

8:02 am: I take time to use the bathroom, take off leftover smudged mascara, and say good morning to my mom before getting in the car and leaving.

8:06 am: I leave the house.

8:09 am: I pass a school bus. It’s the first day of school. I forgot.

8:14: I pull into Starbucks. The parking lot is packed and the drive thru line is a mile long, but luckily someone is creeping out of a parking spot (one of the most inconvenient and difficult spots to pull out of). I park in the spot, and go in, instantly hit with a wave of perfume.

Okay, now let’s take a minute to pause and take in this specific moment. Picture a Starbucks with almost a dozen teenage girls, all clad in Lululemon and all with perfectly curled hair and impressively mascara’d eyes. And then picture me. Day 3 hair in a colonizer-style ponytail, still in the clothes I slept in, and unbrushed teeth. (I normally go through the drive thru, okay? Sue me.) At least I had taken my mascara off… that I had also slept in.

I felt a mix of emotions walking in. First, a bit of shock. Though I was a teenager not that long ago, it still isn’t a great feeling to be faced with that literally 20 minutes after you wake up. Once the shock had subsided, I went into sympathy. I do not miss waking up at the crack of dawn to get ready for school then convince my mom to drive me to Starbucks before school. And while I don’t miss that part of it, I miss the excitement of the first days of K-12. Of course, I still have first days of class in college, but it isn’t really the same. Instead of games and icebreakers, I have syllabi and textbooks that haven’t come in yet. Instead of new classmates that I will get to know all year, I have the people I sit next to (if we can swing it, those people are usually my friends) and my professors’ office hours. Instead of lockers, I have my dorm room.

So at this point in the morning, I have one drink, three emotions. My mom’s coffee came first, but of course I have been on a refresher-kick this summer and that is exactly what at least 10 of these girls also ordered. However, given the long line of empty cups before mine I had the chance to keep reflecting. And I could text my niece, who was undoubtedly going into her first day of eighth grade ALSO wearing Lululemon, “have a good first day!”

Finally, my refresher came out so I left, getting into the car and, thankfully, pulling right out of my spot and turning out onto the road. I left the Starbucks with that bit of shock still intact, and my happy-sadness still swirling inside me.

I’m finding it hard to believe that it is August already. Especially that it’s the middle of August. I think I am beginning to get hit with this shocking realization of where I am in time right now. The past seven months have flown by, and yet it feels like it has been so long since January 1st. I’ve experienced a lot, and in two weeks, my experiences are about to pick up and take off. On a plane. Across the Atlantic.

I’m in a spot where I am moving through these past few weeks blindly and hurriedly. I don’t want to, though. I’ve been so busy making Excel sheets, planning a bridal shower, coordinating my packing list, and shopping for last minute essentials. I have even started getting back into cooking. Last night I made spaghetti squash and homemade spaghetti sauce (which my sister had to help with–for the life of me I cannot combine seasonings to make something taste amazing).

Making the aforementioned spaghetti sauce took what felt like many hours, even though it was really only like two hours in total. There I stood in the kitchen, blanching the tomatoes, and a couple ideas came to me for the blog: recipe or cooking reviews, book reviews, things that I like right now, etc.. And as I am not a chef, or a great reader, writer, or reviewer, I figured that I can talk about some things or activities that I am really into right now. Besides Starbucks refreshers that I have already expressed my lock on.

The first thing I love is this specific pair of jeans I thrifted the other day. I had just been out dress shopping for my brother’s wedding with my mom and sister, a truly exhausting task, and on our way home I suggested we stop in at Goodwill. Just for the heck of it. We didn’t go in with any expectations of finding anything, which is totally fine. And with those nonexistent expectations, I glanced towards the men’s jeans, even though I hate shopping for jeans and I have the worst luck. The jeans gods blessed me that day, and gave me these perfect vintage jeans that fit me well and had the perfect length leg. I bought them instantly, and I’ve worn them twice since buying them (four days ago?) and I’ll probably wear them again just as soon.

Second: country music. I will not elaborate further than saying it has been 90% women, and 45% Taylor Swift.

Going back to those jeans (and leaving behind the country music), I have read many pages of books while lying around the house, whether it be in bed or on the couch, or standing in the kitchen cooking. A lot of those pages have been in those jeans. I know that reading is nothing original or unique, but all summer I have just been in this slump. I used to read tons, but up until a few days ago, I had only partially read two books. I just couldn’t find the determination to sit down and finish either book. One was a book of short stories, so super easy to just read one story and then move on. But no, I put it on my nightstand and only touched it when adding new books that I had bought (side note: my worst trait is buying books when I have two dozen on my TBR that are not the titles I just purchased). And the second book was the same thing that has been on my blog page since I created the website: The Picture of Dorian Gray. I was stuck on this one chapter where sentences ranged from two lines to a full page and I was bored reading it. I liked the book itself, and the writing was beautiful, but Oscar Wilde had lost me. Until a few days ago.

In those perfect jeans I had bought, I sat on the couch and flipped the page to where my favorite bookmark rested. And I began to read. I had over 120 pages left, but by golly I finished that book by the time I went to bed that night. Granted, I had to skim the chapter I was stuck on because there was no way I could read it meticulously and survive without a headache. But I finished. I had been able to add Wilde to my list of authors I had read and I moved on from it with an excitement to read more. The next morning, I opened an easier read (thank you, Emily Henry) and cranked out the 360 pages by bedtime. I haven’t done that in a long time.

Having read two books so close together and so recently, I have a bit more excitement for writing. I think the getting started again part was the most difficult stage, but now words are flowing more easily. How easily they go together, I’m not sure. And it kind of feels like what writing an academic paper feels like for me: like I’m just jumping around from topic to topic with no plan, no transitions, and no real order. I guess that’s okay since this blog is supposed to be fun and a way to improve my writing, but I can feel the added pressure (from myself) to be better, to gain more views on my posts, to make this something bigger. So then I have to take a moment to remind myself that I am no Carrie Bradshaw, and this isn’t going to be read by the masses. It’s personal, to share freely and insignificantly. It is me and those who choose to read.

This specific kind of freedom translates to a lot in my life. It may be freedom in writing, or cooking, or choosing if I want to make matcha at home or get coffee from an overpriced coffee shop. With cooking, I had never been a huge fan before this summer. I mean, I’m still not going to celebrate meals I cook for myself but I have gathered that there is a certain type of freedom in it. At the beginning of the summer, I was obsessed with broccoli. Like I would just pan-roast a head of broccoli every day for lunch, adding sweet chili sauce or simply just salt and pepper. I evolved though, and started making caprese sandwiches or pasta instead. I still make those often, to be honest. But the thing I have turned to most this summer is not really cooking at all.

You know those chocolate-covered strawberry things that were really popular on TikTok? With Greek yogurt? I have made those now three (four?) times. Which doesn’t seem like a lot, but they yield enough for one or two a day for over a week. I. Am. Obsessed. I love them. They are so yummy. One problem I faced with them (probably the only downfall to them) is that the popular method of dunking the frozen rounds of strawberry-yogurt mixture into melted chocolate. When I did this method, I found that the chocolate started to seize, which means that the chocolate gets colder and no longer sticks to the strawberry things. So instead, yesterday when I made them, I spread the mix into a baking dish and let that freeze, then poured melted chocolate over the frozen strawberry thing. Once it had set, I chopped them into bars with a knife and ate it like that. To be honest, it was easier and less messy.

Easier and less messy. The qualities that become more and more attractive as you get older and older. For me, as of this moment, it looks like going to bed at 10:30 tonight and actually taking my mascara off before I fall asleep rather than dealing with it in the morning. And hopefully in the morning I can get a large iced latte soon after waking up so I can get a jumpstart on my rather long to-do list. Here is to hoping that I can get all of it done so that the bridal shower I’m co-hosting Saturday goes smoothly. I would say that life will get easier once the shower is over, but then I will just have to get back to working on Excel sheets and packing as much into two suitcases as I can without going over 50 pounds each.

Thank you, as always, for reading. I’m sorry about the spacing between this post and the last, but it happens. And I have a feeling it will happen again as I start school this semester. And that’s okay, because as I reminded myself earlier: this blog is for me and my growth. Thank goodness that growth doesn’t follow a timeline with specific checkpoints.

(sidenote: I am doing my final drafting and editing in those perfect jeans. I can’t get enough.)