a guide to romanticizing your life

third year priya desai

photo by noah buchanan

As someone who has struggled with a self-loathing brain for most of her life, I’ve spent many of my days in a state of grey indifference, wishing for something else. Over the past few months, I’ve been teaching myself to romanticize my life: to stop and smell the roses, per se. You might be wondering, how could I possibly romanticize my life, especially as it is now? But everything starts somewhere, no matter how small! Take this as a reminder to start indulging yourself in the small joys of life.

i. Read books, watch movies, consume media in any and all forms. Start thinking of yourself as the main character! You are, at least of your own life. Poeticize your bus rides, your busy study afternoons at the library, even your lazy Sunday mornings. This, I argue, is the most important step. We spend so much of our lives looking at others, in TV or real life, longing for our lives to look like theirs. Think about your own life in the same way.

ii. Fill your home with light. I’m talking candles, Himalayan salt lamps, fairy lights, or whatever else you prefer. Open the blinds every once in a while. We spend most of our time in the places we live. Make it into a place you want to be, as best as you can.

iii. Notice the small things. Things like the sound of a leaf crunching under you. The way the clouds outside look like an oil painting. The smell of coffee in the morning. These little things, the stuff we take for granted, are all life. 

iv. Document the present. Take pictures of the beautiful things you see, if only for yourself. Make playlists for your moods; listen to one on the bus ride to your next class and pretend you’re coming of age in a critically acclaimed indie film. Save your movie tickets, your boarding passes, the notes your friends pass you in class. Nothing is permanent, a thought both scary and freeing. 

v. Take care of yourself. As a society, we love to push the idea of self-care, usually commercialized in the form of skincare products or overpriced food. Sometimes self-care is as simple as getting up and making sure to wash your face in the morning. Sometimes self-care is spending more money than you should on getting cookies delivered past midnight. Indulgence is necessary from time to time; sometimes, you just have to buy yourself flowers.

vi. Do things that make you happy. Give someone else a compliment. Wear what you want. Rewatch your favorite movie. Bake brownies. Paint your nails. Call a friend. 

Be realistic with yourself. Some days are just horrible: the days that must happen to you, as Whitman once said. Sometimes I feel like a bystander in my own life, watching the world change with complete indifference to me. Romanticizing my life offers me control over it. It doesn’t always work, but hey. At least I bought myself flowers, and the blinds are open.