No more artichoke.
Trying to be brave in the face of change.
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Every Wednesday, I make two pizzas. One is the kids pizza. I knew long before I started my au-pair job that simple, predictable flavours lend themselves to a child’s palate, but this pizza borders on bland. A third is topped only with cheese. The rest of the pizza has no topping at all—it’s just dough and tomato sauce. When I first started making the kids pizza, it was covered with salami and cheese, but the kids specifically asked that I remove the salami. Most of the cheese, too. At no point in my childhood would I ever have requested a pizza without any toppings. I’m sure I would have been checked into a medical facility with serious concerns about my sanity, had I. The other pizza is the adult one, with proper grown-up ingredients like capers and black olives. I also use fresh mozzarella on the adult pizza because everyone deserves a treat now and again. Each week, both pizzas are shared three ways. My host parents and I demolish the olive laden one, and the three kids pick at theirs. The length and complexity of the story each child is telling usually dictates the amount of flavourless pizza consumed.
A few years ago I read this book, Atomic Habits. It’s full of practical tips on how to create better habits, and how to break ones you don’t want around. In the year after I graduated university, the routine that book taught me to create kept me anchored. I had no classes to go to, but I woke up every day to meditate, read and exercise. The year before I attended university, by contrast, was totally unstructured, and a directionless and undisciplined schedule led to poor physical and mental health. I gained fifteen kilograms. I fell into a pit of anxiety. Having fought all throughout university to conquer my anxiety and to kick the kilograms to the curb, I was eager to avoid a repeat in the years that followed, hence my picking up Atomic Habits. After seeing how effective my habits were, I clung to them. In every new place I found myself—working at a summer-camp in the States, starting a life in Berlin—I would try to build habits. The individual habits were less important than the routine itself. Having structure, I found, was the same as having comfort. Through controlling my actions, I could find something predictable when immersed in new (totally overwhelming) experiences.
A month or two ago, I put preserved artichoke hearts, sun-dried tomatoes and garlic on the adult pizza. Incredible combo! The dad of the children I au-pair then kindly told me that he actually doesn’t like artichoke. I apologised, to which he shook his head in protest, saying that it wasn’t necessary. Luckily, we found a few pieces of pizza without artichoke that he was eager to try. I remember, too, that the kids once got a salami pizza when they were expecting their preferred, plain, one. I was met with a very different reaction; screaming, crying, sulking, demanding a different pizza, refusing to eat anything. It was like I had poisoned it. A small change to the status-quo was enough to ruin their evening and ours.
My life as an au-pair is more flexible than it has ever been before. Apart from Pizza Night, every week is different. Until recently, there hasn’t been enough time in my schedule to go for a run, never-mind setting up a whole list of habits. For the last two weeks, though, since my German course finished, I’ve been totally free while the children are at school. As is my instinct by now, I tried to set up a routine. The routine, odd as it sounds, is my safety. Knowing what’s coming calms me down. It frees up the rest of my mind to deal with everything life is throwing at me (like chipping away at the mountainous task of renewing my visa). I’m hesitant to let go of it, because I’ve seen what I look like on the other side: anxious and overweight.
When I miss my run or my reading a few days in a row, I feel like the safety I’ve built up for myself slips away. I become a little obsessive, believing that the key to relieving my stress lies in perfectly executing my list of habits. I wonder if I’m behaving exactly like those kids at the dinner table: freaking out when met with a change in routine. I went for a run at half-past-nine on Thursday night because I didn’t manage to go during my scheduled time in the morning. It just so happened to be the longest day of the year, so I was home before it was dark. I still got the exercise I want, my day just looked a little different. Right? Can I cultivate a more adult reaction to my routine, my safety, being displaced? Knowing that my routine is important to my overall health, but acknowledging that stressing about maintaining that routine diminishes the health I’m trying to establish, perhaps. I’m not sure. It certainly feels like a better alternative to crying about cheese.
My uncle once said that cheese was like crack cocaine to our family, while polishing off the last piece of Brie. If you enjoyed this journal, please share it with some you love.
I like the drawn picture and the lesson.