Splash No. 261 - A Good Day
A Good Day
I brushed my teeth, flossed in the crevices, washed my face, and did my skincare routine. I scrolled through my phone, and did my bedtime reading. I turned off the light and put on my eyemask, ready to go to sleep. But I couldn’t. After a few minutes, something felt off, like I was forgetting something. And I was! I almost went to bed tonight without writing a Splash, which would be the first one in nearly three years that I didn’t write! My body was ready to sleep, but my mind isn’t, I guess.
Today was a good day, one where I worked and then went to play pickleball with some of my coworkers. For the uninitiated, pickleball is a sport similar to tennis with a smaller court. Instead of racquets you have paddles like ping pong and instead of a tennis ball you have wiffle balls. It’s a lot easier than tennis, which is why it’s fun to just play casually. In the foggy Presidio of San Francisco, we hit our plastic balls to and fro for a couple of hours. I walked 30 minutes back to my apartment, where I ate some leftovers, laid in a bath, and snacked on some greek yogurt before going to bed.
It was a simple day but an enjoyable one! For no reason, I feel like I couldn’t have imagined having a day like today in the past. Because of all of my neuroticism, I’ve often thought of myself as too weird or different to participate in certain things that seemed too “normal.” I didn’t think of myself as a person who would become friends with my coworkers or play semi-popular/semi-hated new racquet sports, even though those things seemed interesting to me. I would default to saying no to things like that, afraid of embarrassing myself since I didn’t know how to play. Or, I would tell myself that I would train on my own before I would be comfortable doing it with other people, only to never pursue it at all.
I’ve changed in this way. I’m trying to say yes to more things without thinking too deeply about what it could entail. Or maybe the more realistic framing is that I’m trying to think about the good possible outcomes rather than the bad ones. Playing pickleball with coworkers could have the good outcome of a fun time and stronger connections with the people I work with, or it could result in me embarrassing myself so badly that I could never bear to go back to work ever again. In the past, I would only see the latter outcome as a possibility, which made doing things a lot scarier. And it turns out that the latter outcome didn’t happen in this case, so maybe I’m onto something here.
I’m doing more things that I’ve wanted to do but was afraid to — calling friends, making plans, saying yes to things. I think all of the pondering of my mortality recently has made it seem stupid to wait any longer to become more comfortable with doing any of these things. I’d rather just do the thing rather than be regretful, wishing that I had done the thing. I won’t be able to do anything then, so I’ll do it now.
Drops of the Week
ALBUM - Green Onions by Booker T. & the M.G.'s - fun record from the 60s with a few covers
POEM - "Katy" by Frank O'Hara - "Some day I’ll love Frank O’Hara."
Thanks so much for reading! If you're not already subscribed, I'd love for you to subscribe here. You can also check out my older newsletters here. I have a newsletter called reflecting pool as well.
Also, I'd love to hear your thoughts— you can reply to this email if you loved or hated the letter, or you want to tell me about how your day has been. I'm all ears.
Yee haw!,
Nikhil