the unglamorous bits
they deserve more air time
Hi, hello! I think we need more space for the un-highlight reel of our lives: all the silly things that go wrong, the mistakes we make, the twists and turns and messy bits that don’t make it to the polished surface, not to our Instagram stories (damn those enticing, glowing circles) or maybe our friends or even our selves when we don’t want to admit we’ve had a really shitty afternoon, or day, or year.
So here we are — tap the ❤️ if you like and let’s get into it!
I will start by saying I am giggling at, and befuddled by, my own procrastination.
Earlier this year I wrote:
Hello from May 4, how is it already May?! I realize I haven’t written in like three months, it’s been a really busy time okay. Filled with much change and uncertainty and hustle-bustle. But it’s been good. I’ve missed you!
Typing now, it is November 4. Exactly six months later! And I’m here dusting off the archives.
What I wrote then still holds true:
This is from a week when nothing was going right. I have realized some weeks (days, months, years) are like that. Even when it’s just a bunch of little things going wrong. Like the gears of life aren’t clicking quite right. What can we do but laugh…and put it in our newsletter?!
So. This is from a terrible, horrible, no good string of days back in April. The mishaps are sort of trivial, but they are also what our live are made of, so I think they’re worth honoring.
I’ll go first:
April 1, 2025
It’s been a week. I am feeling out of the flow.
I even made a list of all the things that have gone wrong this week to prove it -
things that have gone wrong this week
sunday
4pm: purchase brand new cozy wool sweater from favorite neighborhood street vendor. feeling really delighted because I have been seeking a sweater in exactly this shape and made out of precisely this type of cozy fabric. put it on immediately. it feels like a warm hug. yay!
9pm, same night: cozying up at bestie’s house to watch White Lotus. about to sip a mug of ginger tea. the next thing I know said mug of steaming tea is overturned on my lap. I leap up, stripping down in an instant to avoid third degree burns, skin turning very red. beige sweater now tinged with yellow splotches.
9:07pm: frantically Google ‘how to get tea stains out of wool sweater.’ sprinkle baking soda on sweater because the Internet tells me to. dubious about this whole situation.
monday
baking soda has not worked.
take sweater to dry cleaner.
drop it off with the furrowed brow and backward glance typically reserved for young parents dropping their toddler off at their first day of preschool.
wednesday afternoon
stop by dry cleaners to pick up sweater.
owner smiles at me, says she will check on it.after a lively exchange in the back of the shop in a language I do not understand, she returns, smiling widely as she says they are just trying one more thing, please come again tomorrow!
thursday
4pm: pick up sweater. stain is out! magic!
4:17pm: get home, unfold sweater to admire handiwork. notice it is two sizes smaller. pull it overhead. hands sticking out like scarecrow.
friday
try another Internet hack to stretch out sweater with hair conditioner. sweater is now damp and very soft but still too small.
saturday
repeat internet hack, hoping for better results the second time around.
sunday
7am - get up early to go to Sunday service at local Buddhist temple. exit house a couple minutes late because of aforementioned sweater stretching, which I am putting lots of love and care into.
(efforts so far unrewarded.)
brisk walk towards subway. open Google Maps. G train is not running past Bedford-Nordstrand.
shit.
I need to get to Fort Greene in 24 minutes.
bike!
mad dash to Citi Bike station. the dock is full and yet.
every single bike is unavailable, flashing its red no! light.
pull hair away from head. become very agitated. make Marge Simpson noise of consternation.
9:09am - run-walk back to subway station. the G leaves at 9:11am. I can bike from bedford-nordstrand to the monastery, if I put my back into it.
fly over and under the stairway to get to the Church-bound G platform. this is a significant journey spanning vast expanses of concrete and is not for the faint of heart.
run up to platform just in time to see green ‘G’ sign get smaller until it disappears as silver train pulls out of station, away, byeeeeee.
resist urge to fall to knees.
call $25 Uber.
9:28 - arrive very flustered and sweaty to temple 2 minutes before doors close.
keenly aware of the irony of how agitated and sweaty I have become attempting to arrive to a place of quiet calm and introspection, and communion with The Divine.
sunday afternoon
go to bougie new wellness club, SAA, with bestie who has a membership. it is gorgeous.
there are many amenities to be enjoyed but we are specifically very excited to hot tub because it is cold and gray and freezing out. we have brought our books for this exact occasion.
we dip a toe in the tub, jets on, boiling.
it is cold. a coil boiling tub.
ah well we say. we can still rinse off in a hot shower.
no.
showers are running freezing cold.
all of them.
monday
start week with morning mediation, assuming lotus position, to calm mind and invite a sense of wellbeing.
make it all of 10 minutes before old hip injury, which has been gently whispering to me in meditation, starts really grumbling.
ouch.
realize I have hurt myself…meditating.
contemplate my supposed ‘youth’ (?)
or how as someone put it, I have the ‘boo-boo gene.’
monday evening
go to yoga to relieve stress from stressful workday. spend savasana with tears leaking down my face.
bike home.
fail to find a single open citi bike dock within a mile radius of my apartment. refresh the app but all stations remain at 0.
bounce from dock to dock upon seeing a spot open up, pedaling with gusto, arriving just as without fail, mortal enemy fellow biker is slotting their bike smoothly into place.
look at moon.
call mom.
cry.
tuesday
arrive at co-working space 5 minutes before my 10am meeting just to discover that the elevator is broken – the button to the third floor does not light up or go anywhere, so there is no way to get inside.
take call at coffee shop.
bike to the water after work, against the chilly wind, specifically to get my favorite hot chocolate after a very long day.
upon arrival, informed they are completely “out of hot chocolate.”
and of course, a moment for the things that went right
- made a delicious parsnip & sweet potato mash
- read in the rain
- spent time with bestie
- saw an inky sky and luminous moon
- talked to mom (a surefire fix for any of the above <3)
I am happy to report that since then, there have been many better days and weeks, right alongside some no good terrible very bad ones. Not in the earth-shattering sense; more just a string of unglamorous bits.
Stay tuned, because if there’s one thing I know about life…it’s that there’s plenty more where these came from.
And if you feel so inclined to share your own, please do. It’s better when we laugh together.
Xo,
Eden
Wow, Eden. Glad this is six months behind you. Hope things have been going better since. Someone said on Colbert that Central Park was popping with color. I’m sure other parts of the City as well. Hope Autumn is treating you well, wherever you are. Know that you are loved by many.
I love you and your piece even though it describes a no good, horrible day. . Unfortunately those are possible even in paradise and in warm climates.