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She believed she could run a marathon, so she rushed home after work to fit in a run. She had to stop after half a mile because she got too hungry. She then tried to run after dinner, only to feel the stew that she’d eaten sloshing around in her stomach, so she stopped and worked on curating the perfect running playlist instead. “Listen to your body,” they say, but also, confusingly, “Just do it.” She made a date to run with a friend that weekend, but got tired of trying to pretend that she could keep up with her friend’s pace and still appear to breathe effortlessly. Finally, she decided to just take a walk and listen to a podcast.
She believed she could manifest a gorgeous bruschetta recipe featured in the Times. She didn’t place her grocery-pickup order early enough, so she had to substitute every single ingredient, including the bread (for whole-wheat sandwich bread). She also had to leave out the salt, so the baby could eat it, too.
She believed she could apply her analytical mind to the most formidable challenges. She didn’t particularly want to apply it to the 35,256 options for diaper cream, crib sheets, baby bottles, and car-seat-stroller combos. But somehow the attractively calming ads featuring words like “organic,” “breast-shaped,” and “enhanced safety profile” seeped into her brain. If she could keep obsessing over these details, then she would magically figure out the answers to more essential questions, like how to download her human instincts and rely on those instead of a computer, and how to find fulfillment when your house is a mess, there’s no food in the fridge, and everyone in the room is crying.
She believed her stomach could be flat without sucking it in. She started deriving energy from lemon water and celery smoothies, for which she set alarms at 10 A.M. and 4 P.M., and at all other times just drank water and black coffee. She realized that nobody cared about their midriff silhouettes on their deathbeds, but tell that to someone who’s only consumed unsweetened clear liquid for eighteen hours and see what happens.
She believed she could sleep when she was dead, because think of all the things you could accomplish if you slept six hours every night instead of eight. You could watch two more episodes on HBO, text your friend about how tired you are, or post on social media about what you’re doing instead of sleeping and then refresh every ninety seconds to see how many new likes you get. Finally, you could reach that dissociative state where you stop fearing death because at least then you will finally have permission to sleep.
She believed she could accomplish anything with sheer will power. For a couple of decades, she did. While there was always more to accomplish, her will power finally reached its rebellious phase and basically said, “No.” She tried to drink it back through expensive lattes. She tried to buy it back with power pumps that were supposed to be both chic and orthopedic. She tried to barter it back in her gratitude journal but couldn’t ever get past the initial entry about her cat. After several years of frantic searching, cajoling, and bribing, she was, at long last, ready for a nap. ♦
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