Frozen shelled edamame
Oh my goodness. It is Monday, January 5, 2026, and I am writing this at 9:05 am from my dining room table as my 15 year old (they don’t return to school until tomorrow- weird, right?) sits in her pajamas scrolling through TikTok videos next to me (you can imagine the background noise- Funny skits about Stranger Things! swipe. Screaming! swipe. Yelling! swipe. Jokes on the Duffer brothers! swipe. Laughing! swipe.). The washing machine is also churning behind me and our cat Grady is chasing one of his jingle bell balls around the living room. It’s a cacophony and I am here in the middle of it. It is also the time when I would be settling in that corner over there (I am pointing so you can see it) to start my work day.
But, I quit my job. Boom.
I got up at 5:30 this morning and tip-toed out to our living room, where I did my morning pages (from Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way, which I am getting into this year). From there I read today’s entry from The Daily Artist’s Way (also by Julia Cameron) which is a book of meditations where you read one per day. They are short and rather lovely. The writing prompt for today’s is a bit goose-bumpy: “What does your inner eight-year-old want to say to you?”
Let’s just pause a second for that one. Maybe place your hand on your heart and think about that little person you used to be. I hope to sit and write through that one later today.
After doing that, I picked up “Meditations for Mortals” by Oliver Burkeman. I absolutely love this little book and am going through it again (I first read it last winter). This book contains small chapters on different themes, and you read one chapter per day for four weeks. I feel very grateful for the books that I read over the past couple years as I was considering this big life jump. It takes a village, as they say, and my books are included in this. I was first introduced to Oliver Burkeman a few years ago when his book Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals came out. I also love that book (have read it twice). He also lives in Yorkshire, England, which is where my dad’s family is from, and the way he writes is so…English. This is a random side comment :) His phrasing and writing cadence wraps me in a comforting familiarity.
Reading Meditations for Mortals at the start of 2025 set such a tone for me in contemplating my future. It provided so much clarity around these finite lives of ours. Reading it again now, at the start of 2026 already feels soothing, as I sit here in the in-between. The parts of me that feel like I frantically need to figure everything out are comforted by these small chapters that remind me of my worthiness, which are not linked to my actions and my accomplishments. Sitting here when I would normally be sitting to work, listening to TikTok and the tinny sound of a zipper hitting the walls of the clothes dryer, drinking my coffee, writing this? It is okay to take this time to savor.
This morning’s chapter from the book (Day Four, p. 20) is titled, “Against productivity debt: On the power of a ‘done list.’ It was exactly what I needed to read on this first Monday of the year. Burkeman shares a technique for those of us who are “insecure overachievers’ (listen to the song ‘Vienna’ by Billy Joel, which, and how is this for a moment of kismet, I am listening to at this very moment because my daughter selected “The Stranger” to play on our record player- this song was pretty much written for insecure overachievers) and the idea is that instead of having your ‘to-do list’, you work each day on your ‘done list.’ Sharing a excerpt in case this resonates for you as well:
“A done list isn’t solely a way to feel better about yourself, though. When you start to view each day not as a matter of paying off a debt, but as an opportunity to move a small-but-meaningful number of items over to your done list, you’ll find yourself making better choices about what to focus on; and you’ll make more progress on them, too, since you’ll be wasting less energy stressing about all the other tasks you’re (inevitably) neglecting. And while I’m not going to pretend it happens all the time, you might even experience a few of those transcendent moments in which taking action on a project you care about- now that it’s no longer serving the hidden agenda of making you feel better about yourself by helping you repay an imaginary debt- becomes utterly effortless and joyful. ”
Danggg I need this right now!!!
As I did my morning pages in the dim of our living room lamp, I wrote about my realization yesterday that after attending my 7 am barre class this morning, I could swing by the grocery store and get everything we needed for most of our meals this week. And after having that realization, I had a new realization, which is that I needed to select recipes. I sat and did THAT, and I began noticing a feeling of urgency behind this planning, that I needed to run and grab our groceries and then get back home and soon as possible, since my husband had a work call in the morning and was leaving in a few hours for the airport for a work trip. Taking too much time at the grocery store could be “bad,” because I wouldn’t be home taking care of things here. Suddenly this “I’ll just swing by the grocery store” was feeling like I was showing up on the old game show “Supermarket Sweep” where I’d be laughably racing around the store, throwing items into my cart as quickly as possible.
This is silly.
In this same morning pages session I wrote about how I may work more on a creative practice, perhaps by building a routine for one, and how over the past holiday weekend I really did not do any writing aside from my morning pages (and I did a couple blog posts as well, didn’t I?). As I considered this, my first thought was to think that I had not done something I “should” have.
This is also silly. Then my wise voice entered the chat (hallelujah!). She said, “Lindsay. It is 6:15 in the morning of the first Monday of the first full week of the new year. You had no time off over the holidays through to your last day of work on December 31. You then had New Years Day and the following long weekend where you got to embrace some stillness. There is no problem here.”
She was very direct, and I appreciated her showing up. I then thought- Oh Lordy, look at all these activated parts of me that I get to soothe this month! And look at all this experimenting that I get to do! I can be playful here, in going through these next few weeks and couple months, completing my coaching training. I am no longer in the corporate hustle culture. For the first time in 20 years, I may be able to take some time for myself again.
After my Pure Barre class, I did make it to the grocery store. And I bought so much goodness for my family for meals this week. As I stood there trying in vain to open up one of the produce bags (I feel sometimes like we must all be laughed at by security when we’re trying to open up those little plastic bags, surely this must be entertaining for someone), I allowed a relief to sink in that I did not have to rush, that these were first steps leading to others for my day, creating my done list, and embracing some ease.
I ended up in the frozen veggie section, needing some frozen green peas and shelled edamame. There were 7 different brands of frozen peas- finding that one was no problem. But shelled edamame? There were none to be found. This is not the first time we haven’t been able to find frozen shelled edamame (what is going on, grocery gods?), and thankfully the recipe I am making can be easily made without. I surveyed several sections of frozen vegetables, scanning labels as I walked back and forth a couple times, as the clock ticked towards the time when I would normally be heating up my oatmeal and getting ready to start my work day. And here I was, a woman who will be present with my kids on their last day of winter break, not torn between them and the corporate grind that had been my reality for so many years. Instead of using edamame in our japchae I will throw in some tofu. It’s all good. I will make this work.
*** 3 pm update: I went into our chest freezer to grab some lunch food for the kids, and this was sitting right on top, lol. I hadn’t thought to look in there as I thought our frozen veggies were all in the freezer above our fridge!
