I never used to understand when people said they were ‘time poor’. I would just think, ‘Well, make more time then’, then I’d shrug nonchalantly and go back to relaxing after having finished school at 3 pm or decided to take a random day off of University to rest. But now I feel time-poor and I understand what everyone meant. Every week feels like a massive scramble to get everything done. I wonder how anyone is meant to work, exercise, have a social life, have hobbies, and also be rested to do it all again the next week. It feels like I’m constantly trying to take all the shopping from the car to the kitchen in one trip and my arms just aren’t big enough. It feels like I have a washing liquid hooked on the end of my straining pinkie finger, about to fall off and splat on the pavement at any moment. It’s not like I have kids or pets or anyone but myself relying on me so I don’t know why it’s unmanageable for me sometimes. There are things that I simply cannot die without doing, and I worry that I will never have the time to do them all. The worst thing about being time-poor isn’t the lack of time to do what I want to do in one day, it’s feeling like I’m constantly running out of time on a larger scale. I’m terrified that I don’t have time to focus on the things I actually want to achieve in my life. I know I’m young, but one day I’ll blink and then be a hunched-backed seventy-year-old and all I will have done is rush through my whole life in a mad panic and never had the time to sit down and achieve the things I want to. I know this is a feeling shared with so many; the fear of not making the most of your life. I think it may be one of the worries most universally felt.

I also fear that things get less impressive the older you get. As if winning an Oscar at 30 is too late and not as impressive as winning an Oscar at 18, so why even bother trying anymore? If Emma Stone wins an Oscar this year, I’ll google how old she is (35) then think about her career and how old she would have been when she did Easy A (21). Then I’ll say ‘Okay well, we’re not all Emma stones of the world, that’s fine, I can start a bit later’. Then I’ll count the difference in age between her and me (11 years) after which I’ll reassure myself; ‘that’s not so bad, she’s eleven years ahead’. Finally, I’ll deduce that in order to be happy with myself I need to achieve whatever unnamed, unknown thing of excellence I want to achieve between the ages of 27-29. This means I need to start working on it last year or, more realistically, right now at 24. And I have not a minute to lose because, with every extra year, wrinkle, and grey hair on my head there too fades the impressiveness of winning my Pulitzer. I know in reality this is not true and that age doesn’t diminish achievement. But I hate feeling like I’m behind and I worry about spending my whole life feeling like I’m on the precipice of doing what I want to do without ever going off the edge.

I went to the beach last weekend with my boyfriend and we met some of my university friends. As we strolled along the waterfront I was telling one of them how I was going to write a book. My boyfriend said, “She was saying the other day that in four years’ time when she’s 28, she’ll be overwhelmed with award ceremonies and critical acclaim from winning her Pulitzer and The Women’s Prize for Fiction”. My friend looked at me, smiling, and replied “That sounds exactly like something you would say”. I am only half joking when I say things like that. I must have confidence in myself but I also anxiously wonder how I will have time to do all these amazing things. It was actually this same university friend who once told me about her grandfather and how he was an amazing artist. She told me that in his shed he had canvasses full of beautiful oil paintings and pastel drawings that were hung up on the walls and stacked in piles on the shelves. I imagined the room overwhelmed with colour and, in the middle, an older man sitting on a stool paying attention to every careful downward brush stroke. She told me he said that to become good at something it needs practice and to have time to practice what you need is to be selfish. I think this is true, and so I look forward to my life of selfishness. But to have time for something in a stacked calendar something’s got to give and I just don’t know what that thing is yet.

This week I baked again! ‘Finally!’ I hear you say from the back. Yes, finally. I didn’t make a whole reel because, as discussed, I don’t have time for that. Those of you who know me know there is nothing I adore more than sipping on a little matcha latte. So I made these matcha cookies and added in white chocolate chunks for sweetness and to make them look hot for Instagram. I have begun the vicious cycle of pimping up my baking for the feed. I’ll do whatever Instagram wants, I’m a bitch to the algorithm. These were so so so good! I usually don’t enjoy white chocolate but with the matcha, it becomes a match(a) made in heaven.

Goodbye for now.

Here’s the recipe I used.