Do things depending on the mood.
Vinyasa yoga. Pilates if you’re tired. Lagree if you have more energy.You do not need to become a person who meal-preps on Sundays.
Going to the supermarket every evening and figuring dinner out from there is also a system.Eat the healthy dinner. Have the carrot cake.
Keep looking for the perfect carrot cake.
The search is currently ongoing. Crouton, near Strasbourg-Saint-Denis, has been investigated.A city does not have to be forever for you to love it.
Madrid wasn’t. Paris might not be. Milan might be.Allow the honeymoon phase.
Photograph the buildings. Photograph the streets. Let Paris feel like a film before you start noticing everything wrong with it.You are allowed not to know your final destination yet.
Colour, but keep it simple.
Stripes. Patterns. A soft sweater that works with everything.Own at least one slightly ridiculous thing.
Feathers are acceptable.Wear the sneakers.
Even when the options offered were ballet flats or heels.Grow your hair just because these are the years to try having long hair.
Change your hair when something changes, if you want.
Just don’t assume the haircut has unlocked the secret of your personality.Freedom can look like leaving the house in workout clothes.
Paris permits certain indignities that Milan apparently does not.Friendship does not require constant contact.
Remember the tiny things.
Something someone said months ago. Something they like. Something that made you think of them.Listen properly.
Being close to someone is partly knowing that what you tell them will not disappear the moment the conversation ends.When someone is having a bad time, find out what they actually need.
Sometimes they want to talk. Sometimes they want space. Sometimes they just need you to suggest doing something completely unrelated.Be a distraction when distraction is the kind thing.
Read on trains and planes.
And accept that sometimes the book you bought will remain on page five for an embarrassingly long time.Go back to the classics.
The Catcher in the Rye.
White Nights.
And perhaps finally read Il fu Mattia Pascal instead of cheating on the school assignment.When the day becomes too much, walk. Alone.
Towards the Marais. Towards Canal Saint-Martin. It does not really matter.Five euros of reassurance can occasionally be worth five euros.
You don’t have to believe in tarot to enjoy being told something comforting.Do more when you know you’re about to leave.
Go somewhere different every day. Concentrate everything into the time that remains.Dinner for ten.
Go out.
And ideally, one morning, don’t reach for the phone.
Don’t replace it with journaling, meditation, a twelve-step morning routine or whatever else the internet has decided is morally superior.
Wake up.
Get ready.
Exist.