Everything, Everywhere, And It’s All Too Much
Why does it sometimes feel impossible to be feeling so many things simultaneously?
CW: I talk a bit about suicidal thoughts and therapy, so if you need to skip this one, please do so.
Coming to you on a Saturday morning because I have been feeling neglectful of this little piece of internet I have created. I have been feeling… emotional lately, to say the least. Is it all the sugar I’ve been eating? Am I on my period? Am I stressed? (Trick question).
I’ve been comically bad at photographing my bakes and writing about them. I’ve still been baking once or twice a week because it is healing and therapeutic and delicious.
I made a Boston Cream Pie (side note: listen, I did the research, I know why they’re technically called pies, but we need to rebrand this. Give Boston Cream Pie the PR team that cottage cheese has on tiktok right now and let’s get this show on the road.) and as I was driving home from buying the few ingredients I needed, I remembered that I need to get a rental car for my family’s actual trip to Boston in August. I was casually considering what size vehicle I should get when it dawned on me that I’m 25 now and don’t have to pay added fees to rent a car and then I realized - there was a time in my life where I wasn’t sure I was going to live to be 25.
My sophomore year of high school, sitting in my U.S. History class that Scott Sommer taught, and during some free time a few of us were talking about different milestone ages and what benefits come with them. When you’re 16, you get a driver’s license. 18, you can vote, 21, you can drink. When it came to 25, someone mentioned rental cars and I thought, “I don’t know that that will ever matter for me.” As a 16 year old I didn’t know that I would live to be 25 - and here I am; married, working a fulfilling job, surrounded by people who love me. I have almost reached my tenth year of therapy (shoutout to Diana) and I think about that teenager on Diana’s couch talking about how numb she felt and I wish I could sit and cry with her. She was trying so hard.
Suddenly, while driving home from the grocery store, my head started spinning in what I call, “Torn-brain-dos”, because I guess I think it’s funny? This is the string of thoughts that suddenly occurred: The person I most want to watch the Barbie movie with lives in Philadelphia and the planet is dying and my job is so fulfilling that sometimes I can’t believe it’s real and I feel so alone in the knowledge that someone I love is going through such a hard time and I can’t commiserate with anyone how unfair it is and I hope my dad knows how proud I am to be his daughter and what does my mom most wish her parents had lived to see?
I’m so happy I lived long enough to meet and love Trevor. I’m glad I got to grow at Salt & Honey and see people I love get married. I hold all of that gratitude in my back pocket for when I need a reminder that not everything is bad. I hold all of that while still getting the occasional thought of, “What if I died now?”, when I read about the climate crisis. Maybe my top reason for not having children is that I don’t want them to be stuck on a dying earth. I would want them to taste vanilla beans and swim in Lake Michigan and when I think about what we’re looking at 50 years down the line I start to wonder if I even want to be alive for that, let alone force someone else to be.
And this is just it, isn’t it. It is tragic and lovely. I have friends birthing babies and I will fight for a better future for them, even if I may decide not to birth my own. I will continue baking for grief, celebration, and comfort. I will laugh with my coworkers and I will tell my therapist that she may need to check on me the next day. It’s everything, all the time, all at once, and maybe one day I will learn to bear it.
This is beautiful and I love you 💕
Love this and love you, Shelby 💕💕 so glad you are around for this beautiful brutal ride!