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In April 2021, I made a note that I needed to update my metro card to the new system. I have recopied that task 20 times. 20 times, I have moved an ongoing to-do list to a new page in my notebook and written the words “update metro card.” Friends, I have finally taken care of that task.

By which I mean Josh took care of the task.

I’m not sure why copying the words “update metro card” 20 times was preferable to making a single  phone call to have a new card sent. Because that’s pretty much all it took.

But I will not learn from this. I will copy the next task 20, 30, or 40 times rather than make the single phone call. Some tasks are done instantaneously. Other tasks are done within a day or two. And other tasks are destined to languish for years. There is no reasoning behind these decisions.

So we do this thing maybe one or two times per year — usually the last beach trip of summer and again in the fall. We ask the people at an ice cream store we like to deep freeze ice cream to take home. You have to put in the order at least 48 hours ahead of time, and I leave reminders for myself to do it two days before we leave for the trip.

We’ve been doing it for so long that I don’t remember how we even knew to ask. We must have been in conversation with the owner and mentioned how much the ice cream encapsulates our time at the beach, and they suggested that we bring some back with us. I’m certain the owner is the person who gave us the cooler we use to bring it home.

It’s still rock solid when we get it in the house, but a day or two in our freezer brings it back to normal freezer temperatures. And then we can eat ice cream for several more weeks while we’re home.

I was thinking about this because we’re at the end of our fall ice cream stash. It’s something nice I do for future Melissa. And she’s really grateful to past Melissa for thinking of doing this.

This article was very timely because I showed the ChickieNob my Goodreads 2022 challenge, and I’m behind last year’s final tally by about 20 books. It doesn’t feel like I’m reading less, and the books I’m currently reading may be longer than those I read last year. I won’t know the final page tally until Goodreads tells me at the end of the year. I felt weirdly embarrassed about it.

But this spoke to me:

There is something about churning through books that induces envy and even admiration, never more than at this time of year when piles of finished tomes are splashed across social media. Bragging rights seem to go to those who have read lots of books and read them quickly – how many times have you seen someone boast about finishing 10 books in a year? What about five? But there is power in reading slowly, something the Chinese-American author Yiyun Li tells her creative writing students at Princeton University.

I like the idea of spending extra time immersed in a world or living with the characters. I’ve also been rotating through multiple books, reading a few at a time, so I’m picking up what I’m in the mood for at the moment.

I may read fewer books this year, but I savour stories. It’s nice to be handed a reason.

ChickieNob texted me from school to ask about a brass rubbing she made when she was eight years old at St Martin in the Fields at the London Brass Rubbing Center. It fits perfectly with her senior capstone project. I knew exactly where it was, and I told her I’d grab it so she could look at it when she got home.

I ran downstairs and remembered that we had moved the art when we got the new sofa. No worries — all the art would be together, and it was a lot of framed paintings, so it would be easy to quickly locate the tube with the brass rubbings in the storage room.

Except they weren’t there. And then, I started to second guess whether that was where we stored the picture. This launched an on-again, off-again march through the house, opening drawers, returning to cabinets, and searching through boxes. I tried standing on a chair in different rooms to see the space from a different angle. I tried shining a flashlight onto shelves.

I know you can attach a tile to important objects so you can find them, but I need a tile for every item in the house. I know I’ll find the rubbings many months or years from now when I’m cleaning out a random box. But right now, it’s really frustrating to know they are somewhere under this roof but completely inaccessible because I can’t remember where I put them.

My 30th reunion just happened. I would have loved to see everyone, but I’m uncomfortable socializing with the pandemic, and it was in a bar. So I would have had to scream to be heard through my mask while not drinking anything. I don’t know. It just sounded like a bad idea.

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what my high school self would think about my current life. She would be shocked that I’m not a doctor. Stunned that some friendships have dried up and other ones she hadn’t predicted would have staying power have continued. She would be thrilled that I’m married to Josh and have boy-girl twins. She would not know what to make of my job. She would be confused why I don’t have an apartment in London with wall-to-wall carpeting. She would be confused why I don’t seem fixated on wall-to-wall carpeting. She certainly spent a lot of time considering it.

She would be happy that I still have guinea pigs. And still wear overalls. And own a lot of books. And am close with my siblings and parents. She would disapprove of the plants.

What would your high school self think of your current adult life?