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Last week, I got up on Monday morning, took a shower, and made myself breakfast. I packed a lunch, put on a mask, called a car. And then, I headed into Manhattan for the first time in over a year. For those of you who’ve been in and out of “the real world” all pandemic, this probably sounds anti-climatic.

For the rest of you, you might be surprised to learn that it felt anti-climatic.

The human body is nothing if not resilient, and even as we all beg each other to remember that this isn’t over and to not forget all that we have collectively lost and to remember that trauma is real… well, our bodies are doing the exact opposite for a reason. Old habits and old ways of living are astonishingly simple to resume, just as new adjustments like mask-wearing become the norm faster than you’d think. We’re already forgetting what the world felt like a year ago, because we’re programmed to forget. I’m already getting used to having a reason to get out of bed at 6:30 again instead of laying around until 7:45, knowing I can be sitting at my desk at 8:00. I’m comfortable with in-person meetings and suddenly finding logging on to Zoom strange once more.

I’m existing easily in jeans and t-shirts, in actually changing what shoes I’m wearing each day, and in making myself sandwiches to take with me instead of eating an assembly of whatever’s leftover in the fridge with a fried egg on top. I am remembering what it feels like to plan for a week instead of finding a week just happening to me once more.

I am also, it should be noted, exhausted. Resilience is easy and natural, but it’s also tiring to go back to the way things (sort of) were. Last night, I slept for 12 hours. People keep asking me about my post-vaccination social boundaries, and the truth is I don’t know what they are because I haven’t really had the energy to do anything but go to work yet. Do I want to eat inside a restaurant? Frankly, probably not, but I know that answer will change at some point and I probably won’t think all that much about it when it does.

I am, once again, not cooking a ton of “real” recipes this week. I’m making Bryant Terry’s green rice again and tossing it with garlicky shrimp. I’m making falafel and creating little mezze platter lunches with hummus, carrots, raddichio salad, and stuffed grape leaves. I’m slicing up steak and tossing the strips with salt, pepper and garlic powder to tuck into taco shells with corn & green salsa. Later this week, I’m gonna clean the grill and make chicken and blistered cherry tomatoes to eat on top of pasta with pesto. And I will probably fall back on the joy of a good turkey and Swiss sandwich on sourdough with a little spicy mustard and thin slices of apple.

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You’re reading “Soup and Despair,” a weekly newsletter by Sarah Flynn and Rebecca Orchant. It’s about food, feelings, and surviving the dark times. If someone forwarded you this email, it’s because they love you and they want you to eat. You can subscribe to it too!