My social interactions in the past months have been reduced to a new record of minimal. Every message overwhelms me and replying drains my already low energy, therefore I am ghosting more and more people. My desire to post at least three times per week on LinkedIn vanished rapidly and the ideal scenario in which I keep up my personal brand with daily posts disappeared even quicker than a F1 car. I avoid calls because I hardly have something to say – everyday is almost the same.

My level of daily enthusiasm and joy, even when I work, are not even at 1/10 - somehow, they’re not existing anymore. I do my tasks, but my brain is on pause. My ability to focus was never great, but lately I’ve experienced twelve distractions (one to three minutes each) per hour – eight of them consisted of dissociation. This is too much, even for me, so maybe is this the time to take a three-month vacation?

I only took two days, in The Hague, to celebrate my birthday. 27 years came with an intense sadness like a neon color, but with a two-kilo chocolate cake, which I’d marry. When I was cutting the cake, I realized that things don't get easier over time, but you accumulate tools and you can invent or discover shortcuts to get where you want. I applied the geometry and mechanics learnt in college to find the best cut point, but since I almost failed mechanics in college, a quarter of the cake rolled over on the table. A rebel trying to get away (from formal education?), just like me. But unlike James Dean, I do have a cause.

I am stubborn to live and I want to live well, even during a pandemic. Besides flow, uninterrupted time and small goals recommended in the article, I use cooking as a powerful and delicious antidote to languishing. Ever since the pandemic started, I not only found comfort in food, but mental peace. It was something that I can control, since the whole world was going crazy.

What kept me sane so far, food-wise: broccoli with feta, Greek yogurt with walnuts and honey, pear with cottage cheese and turkey fillet & rice cakes with cottage cheese and honey. April 18 was the day of protein pancakes and egg drop soup with tofu, followed the next day by chocolate oatmeal and apple cinnamon toast, cottage cheese with pineapple and lime juice. One week ago I finally drank a spinach smoothie (after I put in 30g of chocolate whey protein powder), I made spinach cheese pasta and the spinach tortillas were heavenly. For the Orthodox Easter I made a Turkish salad with carrot and soya yogurt, and blueberry cheesecakes.

For inspiration, I use Eat This Much and Tiktok, but I am careful not to buy something different on daily basis or buy too many ingredients at once. I adapt the recipes with what ingredients I have in the house and I go mostly on instinct. I don’t cook anything with coconut in any form, almond milk, raisins or bell peppers (everyone’s got their pet peeves, right?). I can’t yet do meal prep as I want, but sometimes I batch-cook and freeze as many things as I can – this way I save food and a lot of money.

It’s hard to flourish while experimenting a pandemic, and even if people are telling you that you should do it, the only thing that you truly have to do is breath and live at your own pace. But if we are bound to exist in an unpleasant or unwanted situation, for a long time, at least let’s make it yummy.